2023: Bala Mohammed runs to Obasanjo as APC zones presidential ticket to south

Bauchi State Governor and 2023 Presidential hopeful, Bala Mohammed, says the zoning arrangement adopted by the All Progressives Congress does not pose any threat to the Peoples Democratic Party in the forthcoming 2023 presidential election.

The PDP chieftain made this known on Wednesday when he visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

It was gathered that the Chairman of APC Progressive Governors’ Forum and Kebbi State Governor, Atiku Bagudu, on Tuesday, revealed that the APC had agreed on a simple, equitable zoning formula for all the six geopolitical zones by swapping positions between northern and southern zones.

Bagudu had said, “We have agreed on a zoning formula for all the six geopolitical zones and essentially we swapped. Northern zones will take positions that southern zones held in the last eight years and vice versa. So, it is a very simple, equitable and fair formula.”

Before the inauguration of a caretaker committee led by Yobe State Governor, Mala Mai Buni, the ex-APC chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, is from Edo State in the South-South while the incumbent President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), is from Katsina State in North-West.

Automatically, the APC, with its declaration on Tuesday, has zoned the 2023 presidential ticket to the South and the chairmanship ticket to the North ahead of the ruling party’s March 26 national convention.

But Mohammed, during his visit to the strongman of Hilltop in Abeokuta, said the zoning of the Presidency to the South by the APC “is not a threat to the PDP, because each party is trying to strategise, to plan and organise. If they zone to the South, it is open to us to see how it is going to give us more electoral victory or if we put it to the North it will give us more electoral victory”.

The PDP presidential aspirant added, “This is the kind of things we are doing; the leg works, the permutations and so and so forth. So that, at least, whatever we are going to do, is give us and provide for Nigerians to choose between the best alternatives.”

Mohammed said the PDP still needed the wisdom of Obasanjo to rebuild the party and take back power from the APC.

“So, I have come to sound his (Obasanjo’s) opinion on some the things going in the party, to close ranks and make sure that we provide Nigerians with the opportunity to rescue the country, from the present division going around which we have found ourselves,” he said of his mission to the ex-President.

On his chances of getting the PDP’s presidential ticket in 2023, the Bauchi governor expressed optimism and noted that leadership should be based on merit.