Lobby if you want presidency, ACF tells South-East leaders

Chairman, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Chief Audu Ogbeh, has advised the South-East leaders and stakeholders to lobby if they want to produce their own kinsman as the nation’s next president.

He noted that resorting to threats and blackmail might not give them the presidency.

Speaking in an interview with newsmen in Kaduna, the ACF also said that the zoning of the presidency should be left with political parties.

According to him, the parties should be responsible for zoning the presidency but noted that the management of political parties has become low and hopeless.

The political parties today have abandoned the constitutional responsibilities of holding their elected leaders accountable.

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Chief Ogbeh who recalled his days as the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said: “I organised the first and the only national conference of our party where we sat down with the president then Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and other governors and asked them to account for what they did since they assumed office.

“Party management is hopelessly low in Nigeria. Unless political parties are accountable to the people, there will be no good governance.”

He reminded Igbo that democracy encourages political power-seekers to be friendly and reach out widely to stakeholders across the country in order to win their respective support.

“We want to advise that if the South-East people want to have 2023 presidency, they should begin to lobby, go round the country, talk to people. But what we are seeing is that there is so much hatred and attacks especially on social media about the 2023 presidency.

“Nobody has come to us to say he wants to contest, but we will support whomever any party throws up because what we need most is peace.

“We are not going to endorse people who cannot do the job because if we make a bad choice the people will suffer for it.

“But you all know that ACF is not a political party, all we want to see is peace and harmony everywhere ahead of the 2023 general elections, during and even after,” he said.

On insecurity in the country, Chief Ogbeh who is the former minister of agriculture said: “This is barbarism. We are all depressed, we are concerned, we are sad. In most cases, we whispered to governments at all levels about what to do to curtail insecurity, and where we have the opportunity we make suggestions.”
Tribune