2023: El-Rufai declares support for return of power to Southern Nigeria

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Monday urged the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to ensure that power returns to the southern part of the country in 2023.

El-Rufai, who stated this when he featured in a Channels Television’s programme, Politics Today, said it is important for the ruling party to honour the “informal agreement” of ensuring that power goes back to the southern part of Nigeria in 2023.

He said: “I think it is important to make this clarification. Personally, I am against zoning because I believe that no country has made progress choosing leaders based on where they come from or their ethnicity or religion. I am against and don’t practise it. I work with people from every part of the country. I don’t care about their religion or ethnicity; I just want to get things done with the most competent persons with capacity and commitment. That’s a personal position.

“However, I believe that as a party, after eight years of President Buhari, we should honour the informal agreement of ensuring that power goes to the South, whether it is South-West or South-East, that is a different matter.

“We have agreed, we have a gentleman’s agreement that power will go to the South and I support that. In as much as I don’t think we should select leaders that way but in the present day Nigeria, that is an interim measure to pursue. But having said that, our party has not taken any decision as far as I know.”