Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) chairman Chief Audu Ogbeh has advised South-East leaders and stakeholders to lobby if they want to produce the country’s next President.
He assured them that threatening and blackmailing would not win them the presidency.
In an interview with journalists in Kaduna, the ACF suggested that the zoning of the presidency be left to political parties as well.
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He claimed that political party management had deteriorated, and that parties should be in charge of zoning the presidency.
“Today’s political parties have abdicated their constitutional responsibilities of holding their elected leaders accountable,” he claims.
Chief Ogbeh recalled his time as the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) National Chairman, saying that he organized the party’s first and only national conference, where they sat down with President Barack Obama, then-Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, and other governors and asked them to account for their actions since taking office.
He went on to say that party management in Nigeria was hopelessly low, and that there would be no good governance unless political parties were accountable to the people.
He told the Igbos that democracy encourages politicians to be friendly and reach out to a wide range of stakeholders across the country in order to gain their support.
Chief Audu Ogbeh advised that if the people of the South-East want the presidency in 2023, they should start lobbying, go around the country, and talk to people, lamenting that what Nigerians were seeing was so much hatred and attacks about the presidency in 2023, especially on social media.
He stated that no one had approached them to express an interest in running for office, and that they would support whoever was put forward by any political party because peace is what they most need.
The chairman of the ACF stated that they would not endorse people who were unable to perform the job because if they made a poor choice, the people would suffer as a result.
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He explained that ACF is not a political party, and that all they want to see is peace and harmony everywhere prior to, during, and after the 2023 general elections.
“This is barbarism,” Chief Ogbeh, a former minister of agriculture, said of the country’s insecurity. We’re all depressed, worried, and downhearted. We whispered to governments at all levels about how to reduce insecurity in the majority of cases, and where we have the opportunity, we make suggestions.”
