Labor and Employment Minister Chris Ngige has approved the Southeastern Geopolitical District to seek the appointment of Nigerian President in 2023.

According to him if Nigerians make an Igbo man president, it would
help to permanently heal the wounds of the civil war and
end all agitations for Biafra republic.

Young people in the South East and parts of South South,
who are dissatisfied with the way the country is being run,
especially the alleged marginalisation of Igbo, have been
agitating for the restoration of the defunct Biafra.
In the South West, separatist groups, led by Sunday
Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, are also
agitating for the creation of Oduduwa Republic for the
Yoruba people.
The minister, in an interview on Channels TV monitored by
Oniftv.., supported the rotation of the presidency to the
South.
“If Nigerians of all shades of opinion in all the political
parties agree to send down the presidency in both parties
to the South East, you would have buried the ghosts of the
civil war permanently. You would have buried all the
separatist agitations permanently; you would have buried
all the sins of ‘oh no appointments, these and that’
permanently. Everything will begin to rest.”
Ngige, however, said rotating the presidency to the South
was a sensitive one considering the issues surrounding it.
“Why do I say so? I say so because we have a constitution
of Nigeria which does not have the issue of zoning and
rotation entrenched in it.
“But that same constitution, in section 14 talks about
federal character and that in any establishment of
government, there must be semblance of everybody
participating so that there would not be any perception of
monopoly of functions of the office there or the powers
there by any section of the country.
“So, that area of the constitution, if you extrapolate it, it is
talking about rotation. If you extrapolate it, it is talking
about zoning, states to be represented in government or
any government institution.
“That is why some political parties like the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) now have zoning and rotation. In
the APC, we don’t have rotation entrenched there. But by
mutual agreement, we’re doing zoning.
“We zoned the offices in the party. That’s why whenever
you have the chairman coming from the North, the
secretary will be South and vice versa. These are the two
effective offices or power in any political party.
“It means you have accepted the zoning of the country.
That’s how our party constitution is. I am one of the 13
wisemen and women that drafted the APC constitution.
“We carried our knowledge from our parties: the PDP,
Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive
Change and even some portions of the All Progressives
Grand Alliance and fused them to build our constitution.
And we did agree as gentlemen that our president, to start
with, will come from the North and the party chairman
from the South.
“So, that’s why I tell you it is a tricky situation because
there must be a discussion,” he said.