Igbawase Ukumba
The ABS Contact and Advocacy Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday requested Nigerians to support the group’s quest for the North Central Zone of the country to produce the next president of Nigeria.
The group equally called on people of the North-central Zone of the country to support it to ensure that the former president of the Nigerian Senate, Bukola Saraki, emerges the zone’s sole candidate in the forth coming presidential primary election of the PDP.
Chairman of the group, Senator Iorwuese Hagher, made the call in Lafia, the capital of Nasarawa State, when he led the group on an advocacy visit to North-central geopolitical zone’s critical stakeholders of the PDP on the need for a sole presidential candidate for the zone in during the PDP presidential primaries of the party.
He, however, lamented that the coming up of multiple aspirants during the 2019 presidential primary election of the PDP from the North-central geopolitical zone of the country was responsible for the edging of the zone during the contest.
He therefore, cautioned against the repetition of the same thing in the forth coming presidential primary election of the PDP, hence the group’s chairman called for the endorsement of Bukola Saraki as the North Central Zone’s sole candidate.
According to Hagher, “A presidential candidate from the zone can easily win the trust of the country, unite the country, build a cohesive country and virulently work on the security and economic problems.
The North Central leaders have started sending emissaries to other geopolitical zones. The delegations are meeting with other leaders to persuade them to help make the idea of a Nigerian president from the North Central Zone possible the way they did in 1999 when the entire country was persuaded to elect a Nigerian president from the South West.”
The chairman believed that the neglect of the North Central Zone in the power equation of Nigeria has affected the confidence and sense of belonging of the usual patriotic, progressive and loyal people.
“It has generally inflicted low morale and complex issue among the people. To cure this despondency this time around, the people of the zone and their leaders are determined to give the quest for the presidency all its take,” Hagher maintained.
Also speaking, former senator representing Nasarawa South in the National Assembly, Suleiman Adokwe, said Senator Saraki has all the qualities to contest for the president of the country.
The immediate past senator of the Nasarawa Southern Senatorial Zone had justified his reasons for vouching for Saraki based on the spectacular performances of the former senate president when he held sway as governor of Kwara State as well as his positive antecedents when he was the senate president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
High point of the advocacy visit by the group was the appointment of former governor of Nasarawa State, Mr. John Mike Abdul, as the Nasarawa State Coordinator for Senator Saraki Presidency.
