As stated in this column a fortnight ago the facts on the ground show that the next president should come from the South in the interest of peace, national unity and progress. And it was wrong for the governors of the 17 states in the South to have said three weeks ago that power shifting to their region was a matter of MUST.

What they should have done was to have used the points I am raising in the piece to present their case. I will deal with the issue discussing the two leading parties, but will start with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the party’s whose situation is good to make my submission.

I take – off with the formation of the APC the party that made it possible for General Muhammadu Buhari to come into office on May 29, 2015. Penultimate Friday, Alhaji Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation during Buhari’s first tenure (May 29, 2015 – May 28, 2019) gave insight into how this happened.

According to him, Buhari in 2003, 2007 and 2011 as the candidate of the All Peoples Party and later the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) won 11 million plus votes and was beaten by candidates who had 14 – 15 million votes in each election. And it is common knowledge that 95 per cent of the votes he got came from the 19 states in the North.

Even if he had won majority votes nation-wide he would still not have been president because he did not have 25 per cent of the votes in any of the 17 states in the South. Whereas, the constitution mandates that a candidate who would be declared the winner of a presidential poll must have 25 per cent of the votes in at least two – thirds of the 36 states in the country. That is in 24 states.

This was what led the leaders of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) to decide to look for political parties to join theirs to come up with a new party. To this end, they approached the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) led by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other parties, to form the All Progressives Congress.

This was why Buhari who had been scoring 11 million plus votes in the previous elections was able to record 15 million plus votes in 2015. And more than three million of the four million extra – votes came from six states in the South – West.

In other words, the votes Buhari got in the South – West was what made it possible for him to become president in 2015. Given this fact, does it stand to reason that any APC leader or member in the North should say that the party’s candidate for the 2023 poll should still come from their part of the country?

Some of them have even come out to say they would take part in the party’s presidential primaries next year. Is it not selfishness that is making some northern politicians in the APC behave this way, with some of them boasting that their region has majority population to make it possible? And that it is undemocratic to zone the presidency to any region.

Does this type of statement and behaviour not confirm that some northerners have the wrong notion that they were born to rule Nigeria? But I believe that the majority of APC leaders in the North will allow fairness and national interest to prevail and concede that the South should produce the presidential candidate of their party for the 2023 election.

I have never met Tinubu personally and he does not know me. Consequently, at 77 I cannot be writing this because I look forward to him appointing me into an office if he becomes president. I am also not a businessman that would seek contracts from his government. So, I have not come up with this write – up for ulterior motives.

I am a Christian, not a Muslim. But I find it unfortunate that some Christians in the North are bringing religion into the 2023 election. They say because President Buhari is a Muslim, that it is a Christian that should succeed him not Tinubu who belongs to the same religion with him. To this end, some of them have started campaigning that the APC should choose Vice – President Yemi Osinbajo, a Professor of Law and Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God as it candidate for the 2023 poll. Some are also canvassing for Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, whom a northern leader once described as another Sardauna.

As shown earlier, it was Tinubu who made it possible for Buhari to win in 2015 not Osinbajo, Fayemi or any other Yoruba man or southerner. So, why should they come to reap when they did not sow the seed of Buhari’s presidency? And as I pointed out in this column last month the president we need in 2023 is someone who has either BSc, Master’s or PhD degree in Economics or is a Chartered Accountant, Banker or businessman of international status. As stated in that write – up only Tinubu fills the bill among all the politicians in the South – West to become the nation’s president.

Related News

Unless Tinubu’s health is such that he cannot contest the election in 2023 and voluntarily withdraws from the race the leaders of the APC will be committing sin against the law and teachings of God in the Holy Bible and Qur’an if they don’t allow Tinubu to be the candidate of their party for the 2023 election. For the Christian Holy Book in Joshua 9: 1 -27, Psalm 15:4, Proverbs 6:1 – 3 and Nehemiah 5:1 – 13 show that keeping to agreements and promises in sacrosanct. This is in Koran in Surah (Chapter) 5:89 and 30:6. While in Matthew 7:12 Jesus said: “Do for others what you want them to do for you,” in other words you don’t repay good with bad.

That God punishes those who renege on promises and agreements is in 2 Samuel 21:1 – 14. It is the story of seven of the eight grandsons of King Saul being ordered by King David to be hanged because their grandfather attacked the Gibeonites against the promise Prophet Samuel and other elders of Israel made to them in Joshua 9:1 – 21.

King David spared Mephiboseth the son of Jonathan, his friend, because of the promise they made to be loyal to each other and members of their families in 1 Samuel 20:11 – 16.

I made reference to the sacredness of keeping to promises in this column in June/July 2011 in a piece titled: Jonathan, think twice, wait for 2015. This was that after completing the one year left of the tenure of his boss, President Umaru Yar’Adua who died on May 5, 2010 that he should allow the North to produce PDP’s candidate for the 2011 poll.

This was because zoning is in the constitution of the PDP and the fact that President Olusegun Obasanjo who utilized the zoning of the presidency to the South in 1999 was given the opportunity by northern politicians to seek re – election in 2003. In the article I drew the attention of President Goodluck Jonathan to portions in the Bible that showed that keeping to promises and agreements was sacrosanct.

And the sad fate that befell King Saul’s descendants. But in spite of this, he ignored my advice, sought re – election and won. But during his tenure he lost his immediate younger brother while his wife lost her foster-mother or stepmother and one or two other relatives.

Next week: Why the PDP too should come up with a southern candidate.

 

 

10 Topmost Immigrant Lagosians – Chief Kitoye Ajasa, Of Dahomey Ancestry

Like Chief Anthonio Oladeinde Fernandez who was featured last week, Chief Kitoye Ajasa was not originally a Lagosian. His family came to Lagos from Ajase in Dahomey (now Republic of Benin) in the early 19th century. His father, Mr. Thomas Benjamin Macaulay, was born in Dahomey and taken into slavery but got freed in Sierra Leone. The family returned to Dahomey and from there moved to Lagos.

Chief Ajasa who was born in Lagos on Thursday, August 10, 1866 named Edmund Macaulay attended CMS Grammar School, Lagos and thereafter went to Dulwich College, a public school in England. He later studied law at Inner Temple Inn of Court. He was called to the bar in 1893. It was after spending 12 years in London that he changed his name to Kitoye Ajasa to show he was an African and proud to be one. He returned to Lagos about 1905 and established his chambers shortly after he arrived.

The conclusion comes up next week