APC: Power shift to south unresolved, northern govs sorry for embarrassing Buhari —Gov Sule

Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has revealed that there was never a concrete decision taken by President Muhammadu Buhari that power should shift to the southern part of the country.

He noted that the suggestion of northern APC governors on the matter had not been discussed with the president before it was leaked to the media by one of them.

Governor Sule who spoke on Arise Tv on Monday revealed that the northern governors had held a meeting where it was suggested that the presidency should go to the southern part of the country in 2023.

According to him, the statement credited to northern governors regarding power shift was not conclusive, as they were to discuss it with the president, and have his input, before one of them leaked it to the press.

“In fact, myself and two other governors were nominated to take our suggestion to the president”, he said.

However, the information was leaked to the public by one of the governors, which caused an embarrassing situation for the president, he said.

He further revealed that the meeting of the northern APC governors with Buhari on Monday was at their instance, to apologise to the president for not getting his approval before it was pushed into the public domain thereby causing an embarrassing situation.

Sule noted that they would have only gone ahead with the zoning issue had the president given his go ahead, and that it would have been dead on arrival had the president said otherwise.

READ ALSO: Buhari meets northern APC governors ahead of presidential primaries

He said emphatically that Buhari insisted that he wanted the choice open to all regions and that the party leadership and governors should resolve the issue and revert to him.

News had broke a few days ago that President Buhari had endorsed a power shift to the south in 2023, soon after the northern governors had mooted such, with an appeal to all northern aspirants in the race under the APC to withdraw.

However, Governor Yahaya Bello had kicked against the proposal, saying Buhari never endorsed the plan of power shift to the south.

According to him, he was not aware of a northern governors meeting where the zoning plans was agreed upon.

The APC had been thrown into rancour over the zoning issue, as reports suggest that the plan may have been dumped and that the party may be settling for Senate President Ahmed Lawan as a consensus candidate to fly its presidential flag in 2023.

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