2023: Ex-Reps Speaker Na’Abba Gives Condition To Support Igbo Presidency

A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ghali Umar Na’Abba, says zoning and rotational presidency have not helped the nation and should be discarded.

He said that the nation’s past experiments with zoning have proved ineffective as a way of engendering development in the states that have produced the president since 1999.

However, Na’Abba noted that the north was not insisting on retaining power at the expiration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term.

Reacting to the clamour for Igbo presidency, the Kano State indigene said he would only support a South East presidential candidate that demonstrates competence and tolerance to hold the office.

“The North is not insisting on producing the next president.

“Personally, I have a long time ago taken the decision not to support the presidential ambition of anybody on account of his/her place of birth, whether it is the North or the South.

“This phenomenon has not helped all the states that produced our four presidents since 1999. If anything, the office is only enjoyed by the cronies of these presidents.

“If you ask the average Bayelsa man or Katsina man or Ogun man, they will all tell you that they are not better off today than they were before the presidency went to their states. I very much support the idea of a president from the Southeast, but he has to convince me that he has the competence, capability, capacity, tolerance, acceptance, consideration and empathy necessary for me to entrust him with myself and my family. And it will be the same if the person would come from Kano,” Na’Abba told Sunday Sun.