ABUJA— WITH the controversy over which part of the country will produce the next president still raging, Governor Ahmed Makarfi of Kaduna State says President Olusegun Obasanjo and 63 other members of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have already decided that it is the turn of the north. President Obasanjo said on national television on Sunday that he decided to neutral on who would succeed him in the interest of his administration and the country at large.
Governor Makarfi in an interview with the London-based New African magazine to commemorate Nigeria’s 44th independence anniversary, however, said Nigerians from outside the north were free to contest the presidency. Said he: “There was a meeting in the presidential villa. The president was there, the vice president was there before the 2003 primaries. The meeting was to deal with problems that were going to confront us at that convention. Should there be an arrangement that the president would serve only one term should the constitution be amended to make it a single term of six or seven years or should the slot be left to the south and then after that, it comes to the north? All these issues were debated.
"Of course, not everybody agreed with a particular thing, and at the end of the day, it was put to vote and it was carried at 58 to six, that it should be left to the south and in 2007, it should come to the north.
“It was not a written agreement. Of course, that was not a national executive meeting, but all the key members of the national executive were there; all the key members of government were there and most of the governors were there.
“What I have said on this matter was to narrate, without reducing anything, what exactly happened and I challenge anybody to say that, that did not happen.”
Asked if it was possible for the agreement to stay in view of the fact that it was a make-shift that merely allowed the party to retain the presidency in 2003, he said: “If the same people (party leaders) say tomorrow that they are changing it, well, it’s their own affair. They reached that decision at that time anyway, and they could change it if they so wish, but until that happens, for anybody to say that did not take place, I think he’s running away from the truth.”
Reminded that the Igbo were calling for equity, the governor insisted that to be equitable was to abide by the decision of the party, most especially as it was reached at a very critical period. His words: “One governor made an observation, does that mean that I have to wait till 2015? Yes, he said it, the people laughed; not because it was a laughing matter, but because in any case, it has been voted on and it has been settled. So, he didn’t know there was a general consensus when it was put to vote and it was carried at fifty-something to less than ten.”
But Governor Makarfi said the meeting did not specify the part of the north that would produce the party’s presidential flag-bearer in the 2007 polls, saying: “When it was shifted to the south, they didn’t say South-West. It was open to south and still, people from the north who questioned the power shift contested. Well, they also didn’t even win because when a gentleman says look, there is a general agreement, we are going to leave by it.
I personally hold no grudge against anybody who puts a question to something. Every Nigerian has a right to that office (presidency); South-South, they have; North Central, they have; North-West, they have; North-East, everybody has a right, but at the end of the day, you look at the totality of the nation and what the nation will agree to.
“If you get it today, fine and good; if you don’t get it today you could get it tomorrow,” Makarfi said.
