The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders, COSEYL, the apex socio-political youth group in the South-East geopolitical zone says attempts by the All Progressives Congress, APC; Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; and other political parties to zone presidential tickets to other regions would resort to the declaration of Biafra.
A statement issued on Thursday by the President General of COSEYL, Goodluck Ibem, alleged that the two major political parties have concluded plans to zone tickets to the North.
The coalition argues that regions in the South also have all the rights to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.
According to the coalition, “it is unconstitutional, a treasonable offence and a defiant suspension of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for anyone to throw away the rotation of the office of the President between the North and South as encapsulated in the federal character principle in the Nigerian constitution.
“When a particular section of the country is excluded from governance and other political positions, it means automatically that they have been told in plain language that they are no longer part of the country which is invariably a declaration of another country in a country.
“We want our brothers from the North to know that the South is not begging for the position of the President of Nigeria, but it is our constitutional right to produce the Nigerian president come 2023.
“The same way the Nigerian government explores the oil deposits in the South as a property of the federal government, so also it is the right of Nigerians from the South to produce the president of Nigeria come 2023”.
