The North is not prepared to relinquish power to the South in the next general election, Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has said.
Ango Abdullahi, chairman of the NEF made this known in an interview he granted Sun Newspaper.
With the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, which began in 2015, winding down in 2023, speculations are rife that there will be a power shift to the Southern part of the country.
Some persons from Southern regions, considered influential in the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), are said to be clamouring for the return of power to the South based on zoning or otherwise known as power rotation which is not known to the party or the Nigerian Constitution.
Their Northern counterparts in the ruling party are not buying the idea which has forced Nasir El-rufai, governor of Kaduna State to openly call for the scrapping of zoning formula on power shift.
While it held sway from 1999 upto 2015 when the ruling party snatched power from it, the now opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) usually choosed its presidential candidates from the two protectorates in the country.
For the NEF chairman, the Northern region will not relinquish power in the next general election and has the numeric strength which is needed in a democracy to hold on to power for as long as it wants.
He said there is nothing wrong if the protectorate decides to keep power for the next 100 years.
“I think there is nothing wrong at all if the north keeps power for century because democracy is all about numbers and we have it. You see, the North is the most liberal voting block in Nigerian political history,” Mr Abdullahi said.
“It is also important to remind ourselves whenever you are talking about power shift between the South and the North that, it was only PDP that had a power shift agreement; it is not in the Constitution of the country,” he added.
