As President Muhammadu Buhari nears the end of his eight-year tenure, power rotation to the South remains a sore spot among APC members.
Regarding a power rotation arrangement, the APC’s southern caucus is sticking to what its top leaders supported before the 2015 presidential election: gentlemanly.
Buhari became the APC’s presidential candidate in 2015 on the strength of this argument; then, in 2023, the South will have its chance. Former Lagos State Governor Asiwaju Tinubu is the frontrunner to be the APC’s presidential candidate. According to experts, he is the most powerful politician from the South in the APC, explaining why he has gotten rave reviews.
Some Northern troops, on the other hand, are engaged in combat. According to media sources, powerful Northerners, fearful of separatist movements in the South, are reportedly pushing the party to ignore the zoning solution. Northern Elders Forum and Arewa Consultative Forum, two prominent Northern organizations, have spoken out to support this stance.
They’re resisting because they don’t want the president to move south yet, according to Iliasu Gado, a well-known Northern critic, and writer. Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu’s call for the nation to split has them concerned about the possible impact on the well-being of the North.
But even though many of them have voiced trust in Tinubu as a leader, the opposition is focused more on the dangers that continuing unrest in the South poses to Northern interests.
Tinubu’s prospects of winning the APC presidential ticket may be harmed by the Yoruba Nation movement, as I explain in this article.
The Yoruba nation’s continuing unrest continues to concern the North greatly. Anyone who has been following Nigerian politics for a long time knows that the North is terrified of anything that even slightly threatens the country’s unity.
Regions in the North reject any argument that challenges Nigeria as a single, indivisible entity. They think issues can be addressed via constructive discussions and conversation, not through calls for the Oduduwa Republic.
Apart from that, Tinubu has also been accused by Northern stakeholders of funding the #Endsars protest, which had a significant impact on the nation and scared the North.
When the accusation was made public, Tinubu was forced to respond by publishing a response and distancing himself from the protestors.
Many northerners are raising the question: Can the North trust and feel at ease under a southern President?
