Chief Jackson Lekan Ojo, a political analyst, security expert and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from the South-West, in this interview, speaks on the crisis in the party, why it should field its 2023 presidential candidate from the North, insecurity and other national issues. Excerpt:
There are agitations in the South-South and South-West over the 2023 presidential ticket of the APC. What do you make of this?
I sympathise with the entire south of this country. It’s like up till now, the southern states do not know the political arithmetic of this country. When you go to the North, the northern states are more populated. Kano alone has 44 very large local governments. The North has 19 states and the FCT making 20 states. I can tell you when it comes to politics the North can get bloc votes from the 19 states and the FCT. But when you go to the South, you can’t get bloc votes from the South-South, you can’t get bloc votes from the South-East, you can’t get bloc votes from the South-West. And if you get bloc votes from the South-East and add it together with the bloc votes from the South-South, it does not make you win anything because the bloc votes of these two geo-political zones will not be more than the bloc votes of Kano, Yobe and Borno states.
So for somebody to win from the South, you need more than 11 states in the North. They say northern people are powerful. Is it the power of cutlass, is it the power of charm? It’s power of unity, power of political understanding.
Now, the South-East is agitating, the South-West is agitating so there will be divided votes within the South and at the end of the day, only one person will emerge from the North. So if you look at it like this, there is no way a southern candidate will defeat a northern candidate in 2023.
So are you invariably saying that APC should zone its 2023 presidential ticket to the North?
Well, I don’t want to believe in zoning because it doesn’t give power to the best person. The most important thing is to let the North bring whoever they want to bring, let the South bring whoever they want to bring. But I want to tell you that the North has a unifying factor; they have something in common that brings them together. If you want to look at it region by region, the South can never rule this country any time. So let us have political affiliation with the North.
What happened in the 2019 presidential poll? The margin of votes the President gave Atiku was not that much, but if it were between Ojo and Abubakar, the gap would have been over 10 million votes. But the gap was not much because both the President and Atiku are from the North. So any party that zones its 2023 presidential ticket to the South is a loser.
Don’t you think that the South would feel cheated if the APC still fields a northern presidential candidate in 2023?
Why would they feel cheated? Okay, let the PDP and APC zone their presidential ticket to the South and let ordinary AA zone to the North and see what will happen. You will discover clearly that Nigerians are no longer voting for political party but candidate. So to me, I don’t believe in party, I am a realist, I am a pragmatist.
The North can parade an array of presidential materials that can rule the world so also the South. So I still foresee a situation where any candidate who comes from the North will still carry the flag in 2023. Today, I am a chieftain of the APC, but if the APC zones it to the South and the PDP zones it to the North, I am going to follow the northern candidate because I won’t follow a loser.
