The opposition against the zoning of the 2023 Presidency continued on Monday with a coalition of over 60 Northern groups, describing it as undemocratic.
The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) warned that any political party which takes any step to block the window for the possible emergence of a northern presidential candidate will be rejected.
The organization also threatened to revoke the property of any person in the north who may decide to obey the one month sit-at-home directive issued by the Indigenous People of Biafra.
Spokesman for the group, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman said this at a press conference with the theme: “Our stand on the threats of destabilization from Southern Nigeria,” held in Abuja.
He said, “We have seen a new statement by IPOB directing all Igbos living anywhere in Nigeria which includes the North to participate in the sit-at-home order for one month.
“What we are saying is that the Igbo in the North are not threatened. On our part, we are going to hold any trader that complies with IPOB directives in the North.
“We will definitely take steps to ensure that his business place is revoked because we have no problem with Igbo here doing their businesses peacefully.
“But if they comply with that order, it means they are also with the people that are actually challenging the state. We do not want any Igbo man to comply with that in Northern Nigeria.”
According to him, no conspiracy in whatever form would “stop the North from fielding a Northerner for the presidency in the PDP in 2023 irrespective of its recent body language that tends to block a northern candidacy by quickly zoning the national chairmanship position to the North which is unacceptable.”
The CNG further said, “We find the renewed desperation by the South to threaten northern people’s right to franchise a deliberate attempt to bastardize democracy, cause greater instability in the guise of a contentious, undemocratic power shift arrangement and therefore downright unacceptable.
“As evidence of an agenda to impose a nonexistent zoning arrangement on the North that has its root and pattern in our history, recall that the Peoples Democratic Party which initiated the idea of zoning had itself literally bungled it at all subsequent elections since 1999.”
