The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction with the alleged use of threats and blackmail by some politicians in the South to demand the zoning of the presidency to the region in 2023, IgbereTV reports
In a statement titled: “Enough of Blackmail,” issued by its Secretary-General, Murtala Aliyu, the Forum said the North had never stood against the election of any Nigerian as President or moved to dominate the country.
It noted that Northerners are no longer threatened by the calls for restructuring, secession, or break up of the country.
The demand for power shift to the South had increased in the last few weeks over perceived moves by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to dump the zoning principle ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The statement read: “A long-running political riddle that has continued to frustrate all efforts at achieving ‘justice, equity and fair play is this: anything and everything in which the North has superiority or advantage or strength is, in the opinion of many Southerners, fake or contrived or speculative and, therefore, unacceptable.
“These Southerners contest the fact that the North has 78 percent of the landmass of Nigeria. They refuse to accept that the North has over 55 percent of the population of Nigeria. They won’t concede that the voting population in the North-West region of the North alone is bigger than those of the South-East and South-South combined.
