2023 Presidency Zoning Unconstitutional, Northern Groups Says

The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has expressed their strong opposition to the zoning arrangement of the presidency by political parties, saying it is unconstitutional and a plot to intimidate the north from contesting for the presidency in 2023.

The CNG spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, at a press briefing on Monday said the group stands with the Northern Governors’ Forum and asked the political parties to discard the idea of zoning the post to the southern region of Nigeria.

“We find the renewed desperation by the south to threaten [the] northern people’s right to franchise a deliberate attempt to bastardise democracy, cause greater instability in the guise of contentious undemocratic power shift arrangement and therefore unacceptable,” he said.

“The CNG after due consultation with stakeholders, leaders and elders has categorically resolved to firmly and solidly align completely with the position taken by the Northern Elders Forum as expressed by Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and that of the Northern Governors’ Forum that zoning of elective positions is unconstitutional, undemocratic and must be jettisoned”.

According to the CNG spokesman, as a major stakeholder in Nigeria especially with respect to elections, the northern region will not submit to any zoning arrangement for elective positions in the coming general election.

The group’s comment came eight days after the northern governors’ opposition to the call by their southern counterparts that the Presidency should be zoned to the south in 2023.

The Chairman of the Forum and Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, read out the communique containing the resolutions on his colleagues behalf after an emergency meeting with traditional rulers in the region at the Government House in Kaduna on September 27.

According to the governors, the agitation by southern governors to zone the presidency goes against the provisions of the amended 1999 Constitution.

They stated that any president elected must meet the constitutional requirements which include scoring the majority votes, and polling at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in two-thirds of the 36 states of the federation.

Governor Lalong noted that although some northern governors had endorsed the power shift to the south, the regional governors collectively fault such calls.