2023 PRESIDENCY: Ex-SGF Lawal says Ndigbo are their own enemies, not north

Babachir Lawal, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), who was sacked over alleged fraud, has faulted the notion that the north had been against a politician from the South-East emerging as the president of Nigeria.

He suggested that the Igbo people of South-East, instead, have been their own enemies by not uniting to ensure the emergence of a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction.

“They (Igbos) have not been working together to actualise an Igbo presidency,” he said.

Lawan said he could not see the South-East producing the president of Nigeria in 2023 because the region’s chances of getting the nominations of one of the major political parties might not be feasible “because politicians from the region had yet to reach an agreement”.

Lawan stated this while making a case for the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, emerging as Nigerian President in 2023.

Speaking in an interview with some journalists in Yola, Adamawa State, Lawal, who said he was in support that power should return to the South, pointed out, that Tinubu possessed the qualities of a good modern president to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

“By 2023 when Buhari’s tenure will be over, he’ll go back to Daura to face his cows like I am doing. But you see, every leader must leave behind a legacy. I will like to see that he leaves behind a legacy of achievement.

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“Bola Tinubu is my friend of many years. Buhari is my big boss. Bola Tinubu without prejudice that he’s my friend will make a good president. Other issues notwithstanding, he will make a good modern president because the presidency these days is scientific. Nigerians, by convention, seem to have agreed that there should be rotation of the presidency”, he said.

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