A former Chairman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Paul Unongo, has called on Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, to contest for the presidency in 2023.
He made the call in an interview published by The Sun.
Unongo described the businessman-cum-politician as having more guts and courage than any other Igbo man he had seen.
Asked if he would support an Igbo man for president in 2023, Unongo said, “Of course yes. I am encouraging my son, Rochas Okorocha, to come out and stand as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He has more guts and courage than anybody I have seen from the East. I will support him if he comes out.”
However, he condemned the call for the 2023 presidency to be zoned to one particular region of the country.
According to him, zoning remains a political party arrangement that should not be given serious thought by any well-meaning Nigerian.
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Asked if the 2023 presidency should be zoned to the East, Unongo said, “Election by the wisdom of political parties is by zoning. What you people don’t know, is that there is a young man from Cross River who was a governor who insisted on contesting and becoming a presidential candidate of a political party with Prof Jerry Gana. Telling him that he will not, Jerry Gana was proved wrong by the courts and the young man was right. He is the only one I respect as a Nigerian, because you people created a cocoon for yourselves and forced yourselves into the cocoon and then you cry wolf and the wolf is in you. It was the political parties that said, there should be power sharing between the North and the South. I can start agitation that this is North and South thing; when it comes to the North it is always Fulani so I want it to be on the basis of my tribe. If a Fulani has been president, nobody from the North who is a Fulani man should be president again, this will be a ridiculous country, but that is the thing that is being asked.”