By Uche Mbah
The Middle Belt Forum, MBF, said they will put their weight behind a President of Nigeria from the Southern part of the Country in the interest of fairness, justice and equity.
Though there has been clamor for a Southern President to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari come 2023, none of the two major political parties has officially zoned the presidency to the South.
But the leader of the forum, Dr. Bitrus Pogu who stated this while fielding questions from Journalists as guest of Morning Show, a programme on Arise Television, said they have officially communicated the Southern Governors forum of their position.
“We visited the Governor of Ondo state, who is the chairman of the Southern Governors Forum to tell him that we started a movement and that movement started at Awka where we decided to do two things: to declare our support for emergence of Southern Government so that the rotation principles established in this country be adhered to and we believe that would address many of our problems”, he said.
“At the Awka meeting, we also decided that we should launch a program that would sensitize the youth of this country and we called it the Forty Million Ballot Movement. The youths who constitute the majority of our voting population would key into this new development that would transform Nigeria.
“We also decided that we should launch a program that would sensitize the youth of this country and we called it the Forty Million Ballot Movement. The youths who constitute the majority of our voting population would key into this new development that would transform Nigeria.
“We told Mr. Governor that we met, that is, the socio-cultural groups comprising Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Pan Niger Delta Forum, Afenifere and the Middle Belt Forum at Abuja on the 13th January, 2022, and we also endorsed that same position that we would want to see the emergence of a president by 2023 of southern extraction.
“We went further to say that if any political party decides to fill a governor of northern extraction, we will campaign against such political party and the political parties should know that we are determined in that. We went to show solidarity and to tell him our position and that he may as the President or chairman of Southern Governors’ Forum convey the message to his colleagues that we support the emergence of a President of Southern extraction.”
The Southern Governors Forum has kept insisting that the Presidential seat, in 2023, rotates to Southern Nigeria.
