June 28, (THEWILL) – A Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Plateau State, Saleh Mandung Zazzaga, has urged the Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to pick Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State as his running mate.
Zazzaga said some of the leaders and politicians from the North Central geo-political zone, who are calling for the selection of the running mate to Bola Tinubu from the zone as not being proactive.
The APC bigwig, who spoke with newsmen in Jos, said when every other zone is pushing for the zoning or consideration of their zone for the 2023 presidency, most of the leaders are keeping quiet, and allow only a few of them in the struggle.
“As APC leaders from the North Central region with like minds, we have to push for the Presidency to come to the region, because apart from the military era, since the democratic dispensation, the region hasn’t actually produced either the President or the Vice President, but has tremendously contributed to the democratic growth of the country”, he noted. Adding that, “we did all we could to achieve this by kicking against the acceptance of the Party’s national Chairmanship position by anyone from the region because it would automatically make another region to be considered ahead of us for the presidency.”
He also said, “many North Central politicians were more interested in the national chairmanship of the parties, rather than the Presidency, which was our major quest. We could not eventually pull this through, as the two major political parties national chairmanship position was clinched by politicians from the region.”
He further said, “in our effort to achieve our aim of clinching the Presidency, we spent our time and resources, but without any support from leaders of the region.
“Surprisingly, now some of the leaders are pushing for a running mate to the APC Presidential candidate to be picked from the region.”
According to him, Lalong is a bridge and peace builder, rational, unbiased and an achiever with the ability to coordinate the Northern Governors in this tendentious period of security challenges in the region.
He called on all and sundry to join hands with INEC to conduct a free, fair and credible election, noting that all the Party’s candidates should urge their supporters to work towards a violence-free electoral process.
