By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

AN Elder statesman and chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Mike Ahamba, has said that zoning the presidential ticket to the South for one term and rotating it to the North in 2031 by the New Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, will guarantee massive support and victory for Mr Peter Obi and Senator Musa Kwankwaso if fielded.

Chief Ahamba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, also emphasized keeping to any agreement entered into, even though he said he is not an advocate of zoning.

Speaking on the NDC’s zoning of the presidential position to the South for one term of four years before it returns to the North, Chief Ahamba said the decision could prompt massive Northern support for an Obi/Kwankwaso ticket.

Asked whether the decision, which some have described as a masterstroke, could bring victory to the party, he said: “Yes. It may make the North support Kwankwaso in 2027. I think it is quite favourable for them to support Obi and Kwankwaso. After four years, they take back the power for another eight years. After eight years, it comes down to the South.

Ahamba potential convention

“This is an unwritten law. It can become a convention which can maintain peace in a country. It’s an unwritten law: there’s no law saying it anywhere. So you expect decent people to comply. If any Southerner is running for presidency (in 2027), he should know that he is running for a four-year term. Any Southerner running for presidency now should advise himself or herself that the term he is running for is a four-year term.

“I don’t belong to NDC as of now but if they are alternating between North and South, it depends on what zone is occupying it, giving to the South. Tinubu has stayed four years now, and it is eight years. So naturally, if it is eight years North, eight years South, then after four years, it will go back to the North.

Asked if there is no constitutional encumbrance, he said, “no, the Constitution does not talk about rotation or alternating. This is a convention that is going to be obeyed as a result of the agreement by the party.

“So in fact, there is nothing in the Constitution that says you should rotate the presidency or should give the presidency at a particular time to a particular zone. So, it is an agreement among the political parties. Most of the parties have agreed that if you move from it, it can create a problem. But in the North, they have done that. The South has also done it. Tinubu has got it. Tinubu has done four years. If he does another four years, then it still goes back to the North, a different part of the North.

“I would expect, if it comes back to the South, it goes to a different part of the South. That’s the way it is done.”

Reminded that the Constitution allows somebody to go for a second term after completing the first term of four years, Chief Ahamba said: “One will expect that anyone running for presidency should be gentleman enough to follow the agreement that the NDC has put. That is what we have decided among ourselves; the candidates are agreeing. Most of them are agreeing.

“After all, Peter Obi, for example, says he’ll only be there for four years. So if he asks me, I wouldn’t have supported it, but he says he will be there for four years only. So there’s nothing anybody can do about it, because that’s what they decided to do.

“So after four years, he has to be gentlemanly enough to relinquish unless the electorate is so good that everybody wants him to continue. I’m not saying that he has won the election. So this is it.

“I am not an apostle of rotation or alternating. I’m not an apostle of it because Igbos don’t support it; it can lead to making the wrong person president of the country because it is the turn of his people to bring him. But it is something that a vast majority of Nigerians now want. So I have to adjust, because I’m a democrat.”

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