All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain and a former governorship candidate, Uche Nwosu, has described those agitating for a power shift to the South without supporting the Southeast to produce the next President in 2023 as unfair.
Nwosu argued that it amounted to double standards to accuse the North of plotting to retain power in 2023 while denying the only zone (Southeast), which has never produced the country’s President, the opportunity to do so.
He maintained that the only way equity and justice can be truly served is for other zones in the Southern part of the country to support the Southeast as power shifts to the region.
The APC stalwart said: “He that comes to equity must come with clean hands.
“You can’t be agitating for power shift to the South in the guise of equity and justice and when power moves to the South you no longer preach equity and justice, that is simply unfair.”
Nwosu spoke with selected journalists in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said: “When our brothers from the Southwest or Southeast come out to say they want to be President for equity and justice sake, they are simply not fair, there is no equity or justice in that.
“The true equity and justice are to make sure that every zone in this country will have the opportunity to rule this country, that is the peace, that is the equity, that is the justice for me.
“The Southeast is determined to get to power by the support of other zones but I still plead with our brothers from other zones to understand that the country is built on three legs, that is the Southeast, Southwest and the North.
“If you talk about the six geo-political zones we have now, others have tasted it. In the Southwest, we have Ernest Shonekan and Olusegun Obasanjo.
“In Northcentral, we have the likes Abdulsalami Abubakar, Ibrahim Babangida.
“In the Northwest, we have the President Muhammadu Buhari. The Northeast produced a Vice President. It is only the Southeast that is left.
“When it is done North and South, it is now the turn of the South, when you come to the South, it is the turn of the Southeast.
“If we have brothers from the South who are accusing the North of wanting to retain power but when the power shifts to the South, you that have occupied the office is trying to take it again and you are accusing the North.
“So, for me when we talk, we talk with dignity, with principle and with our conscience open.
“People should come out and do things with conscience and in the way it will please God.
“If you are accusing the North, that the North doesn’t want to release power to the South and you that have tasted power in the South want to take power again, you’re not sincere.
“This is because if you’re accusing the North that they have done eight years and you that have tasted power in the South wants it, you’re just playing to the gallery.
“If you’re coming to equity, you must come with clean hands.”
On the heightening interest by other zones for the presidency, Nwosu said: “We are not discouraged that other zones are interested. This is democracy and you don’t just sit at home and expect them to give power to you.
“You have to move and campaign for you to get it, so we know that you can’t sit in the Southeast and power will come from the North, Southwest or Southsouth and be given to you.”
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He commended presidential aspirants from the Southeast for closing ranks and agreeing to work together to actualise the age-long aspiration of producing a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction.
“The most important thing is that the Southeast is coming together.
“A few days ago, the Presidential aspirants from the Southeast met in Abuja and agreed to work together, both those in the APC and the PDP.
“Before people had thought that it will be impossible for them to come together, but they are coming together.
“Initially, they said if the Southeast can come together, they will support them.
“They also said that the aspirants coming from the Southeast are many and that they should select one person.
“The ones coming out from other zones, are they not many? We should stop trying to use cheap blackmail to stop a section of the country from tasting what others have tasted.
“What we need now is a unifier; we want somebody who can come and treat the six geo-political zones as one.
“We don’t need an ethnic bigot who will come in and the first thing he will do is to face his region; we don’t need that kind of President.
“We need the President that will look at the entire zones as his own. We need someone who will unite this country as one and we have them in the Southeast – the likes of Owelle Rochas Okorocha, Dave Umahi, Chris Ngige, among others.”