The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Most Rev. Alfred Adewale-Martins, has opined that Nigeria’s next president should be from the Igbo-speaking part of the country.
Speaking ahead of the 2023 General election, the clergyman noted that the presidency should be zoned for the sake of equity and justice.
While addressing newsmen at the ongoing 2021 Catholic Women Organisation of Nigeria, in Lagos, on Friday, PM News quoted the clergyman as saying that other zones of the country have had their fair share of the highest political position, except the southeast zone.
According to the clergyman, zoning the presidency will serve as a remedy for the unending agitations for self-actualisation by various ethnic nationalities that make up the country.
“There is nothing wrong with the federal system of government as stipulated by the founding fathers, but the way it is being practised in the Nigeria polity is the deformity of the society.
“If well practice it well, it is meant to engender healthy competition by the federating units, just as we see it being practised in the US where we copied it from and others.
“The disenchantment of the citizens to the state from time to time speaks volume of our dysfunctional system of federalism laced with the Nigeria factors as against the true practice,” he said.
While faulting the leadership recruitment processes of the political parties he called for a change, urging the parties to enable good persons whose characters conform with peoples’ aspirations to become flag bearers.
The clergyman, therefore, charged the nation’s political actors, the political parties, and the civil societies to save the country from unwanted upheavals by ensuring that somebody from the southeast of Igbo extraction becomes the president in the next dispensation.
Speaking further, Adewale-Martins charged the women to galvanize themselves and use their numerical strength to change the narrative and see a woman aspire beyond being presidential candidate of a party to becoming the president of the country.
