Sort out zoning issues – ACF tells APC, PDP, others

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has asked all those interested in Nigeria’s presidency come 2023 to go round, meet with Nigerians and lobby while political parties sort out the zoning arrangement in the interest of the country.

The forum made its position known in Kaduna through its chairman, Chief Audu Ogbe, who said the forum is only a pressure group and not a political party and therefore did not prescribe. 

Ogbe instead said political parties in Nigeria need to, in the interest of the country, sort out the issue of zoning.

Speaking with journalists in Kaduna, Ogbe, a former national chairman of the PDP and former minister under the current administration said: “The question of zoning should be left to the political parties. Let everyone who wants to participate go round, lobby and talk to people.

“There is so much hostility and venom and people are writing all things on the pages of newspapers. Nobody has come to us here to tell us they want to run, and we would tell them, fine, talk to this and talk to that. 

“So, let people move around, it is not warfare, we want Nigeria to have peace, we want equity, we want fairness and people may like or may not like zoning but if it solves our problem in Nigeria, we should run it,” he said.

He said ACF will support whoever the parties throw up but warned that there is no way the whole of the North will vote for one person.

“That will not happen; people will vote according to their conscience and convictions. But what we need most is peace and stability, we don’t want a breakup,” he said. 

He chided political parties in Nigeria over what he called ‘low party management’ stressing that unless they wake up and hold those they appoint or elect to account, Nigeria will never be well.