By Celestine Okafor (Editor-in-Chief) @CeleOkaf11
Former Minister of Sports, Soloman Dalung, has joined eminent Nigerian leaders to advocate for Presidential power shift to the South in the 2023 general elections.
Like others, Dalung believes that a periodic and equitable rotation of power would tremendously bring unity, fairness, equity and internal harmony in the country in 2023 and at all times. He maintains that in the present circumstance, only the people of Southern Nigeria should bid for the presidency in the coming polls.
The former Sports Minister spoke on Arise News Television on Thursday afternoon, February, 23 2023. Dalung who recently launched a new political platform, the Nigerian National Movement (NNM) with former Kano State Governor, Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso, said, despite his association with kwankwaso, he would not vote for any presidential candidate from the North in 2023.
According to him, retaining the presidency in the North after eight years of President Mohammed Buhari regime negates the principles of fairness, equity and Justice. Dalung, who was a minister under the All Peoples Congress, APC, said he nearly died in 2015 fighting for the enthronement of these virtues in Nigeria. But regrettably, he bemoaned, that all the changes he and many other Nigerians fought for in 2015 were never actualized by the present administration.
Dalung stated that Nigeria has never been this divided since her post-independence history and that if Nigerians are sincere about being one indivisible entity in the country, the leadership of Nigeria must unbrokenly rotate between the North and South regions. He also stated that though he is part of the new body called Nigeria National Movement, but he is not working towards making the movement another political party. Instead, he said, he would want to identify with anything that will bring justice to Nigeria.
Dalung who tendered apology to Nigerians for his role in foisting APC on Nigerians said, the party has failed in all its promises. According to him, "in 2015, we never campaigned for bandits to take over Zamfara. Neither did we campaign for a bag of rice to be thirty thousand Naira, nor a dollar to be N500".
Dalung however described the on-going defections from PDP to APC and vice versa as mere metamorphosis, saying that there is not much to expect from such political cross-carpeting or manoeuvres. NNL.
