Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labor and Employment, has said the zoning of the 2023 presidency toward the southeast would end the secession agitation in the area.
Ngige said all of the agitations for Biafra and the injuries of the civil war would be permanently healed on the off chance that an Igbo individual emerges as President in the 2023 general election. Speaking with Channels Television, the minister said the Southeast would pardon the whole Nigeria for the “sins” of the civil war.
“If Nigerians of all shades of opinion in all the political parties agree to send down the presidency in both parties to the South-East, you would have buried the ghosts of the civil war permanently.
“You would have buried all the separatist agitations permanently; you would have buried all the sins of ‘oh no appointments, these and that’ permanently. Everything will begin to rest,” the minister said.
He, however, guided out that the zoning of the presidency toward the Southeast was a sensitive one considering the issues encompassing it.
“Why do I say so? I say so because we have a constitution of Nigeria which does not have the issue of zoning and rotation entrenched in it.
“But that same constitution, in section 14 talks about federal character and that in any establishment of government, there must be semblance of everybody participating so that there would not be any perception of monopoly of functions of the office there or the powers there by any section of the country.
“So, that area of the constitution, if you extrapolate it, it is talking about rotation. If you extrapolate it, it is talking about zoning, states to be represented in government or any government institution.
“That is why some political parties like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) now have zoning and rotation. In the APC, we don’t have rotation entrenched there. But by mutual agreement, we’re doing zoning.“We zoned the offices in the party. That’s why whenever you have the chairman coming from the North, the secretary will be South and vice versa. These are the two effective offices or power in any political party,” he added.
