2023: APC Founding Fathers Agreed Southerner Will Succeed Buhari – Osoba

A former governor of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba, has revealed that the founding fathers of the All Progressives Congress (APC) agreed in 2013 that a southerner will succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

Recall that the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) merged to form the APC.

Speaking on Arise TV on Tuesday, Osoba said the agreement stated that after Buhari’s tenure, the next president will come from the south.

According to the APC chieftain, the south-south, south-east and south-west regions can put up candidates for the APC’s primary ahead of the 2023 election.

Osoba said: “We had a clear gentlemanly understanding that the northern part of the country will produce the president when we did the merger in 2013. And the chairman of the party will then come from the south.

“We have had a president for six and a half years now from the north in APC. The president will be there for eight years until 2023. The chairmanship has moved from chief Bisi Akande in south-west to John Oyegun from south-south and then from John Oyegun to Adams Oshiomhole, also from south-south.

“Of course, at the end of the tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari, the gentlemanly arrangement is that the presidency will come to the south and I talk of the south in terms of the two territories that were forced to amalgamate in 1914 which means the south-south, the south-east and the south-west zones which are also not in the constitution can bid and should be allowed to produce the next president for this country.

“Therefore, those from the south-east, south-south and south-west can put up candidates for the party’s primary and whoever emerges from the primary can then be the candidate of our party.

“That is the gentlemanly understanding that we reached when we were doing the merger arrangement.”

Naija News reports that there have been calls from various quarters for the APC to zone its 2023 presidential ticket to the south.

Some groups have also called on Nigeria’s two major political parties to micro-zone it to the South-east.

But speculations have emerged that politicians from the northern part of Nigeria are plotting to contest the election.