2023: Southeast can’t get presidential ticket in an open contest, Kalu replies Edwin Clark

Orji Uzor Kalu, the Chief Whip of the Senate, has declared that the southeast cannot get the ticket of any party in an open contest as it is today without a gentleman agreement to concede it to the zone.

Telescope.ng reports that Kalu, in a statement personally signed by him and shared on his Facebook wall, said this in response to elder statesman, Edwin Clark, while explaining his reasons for openly supporting the Senate president, Ahmad Lawan.

Kalu said he had great respect for Clark who is an elder statesman and a patriotic Nigerian.

He said: “I want to sincerely commend him for openly supporting the southeast geopolitical zone to produce the next president of Nigeria. It is imperative I remind him that I didn’t betray my people, rather I am doing my best to reintegrate them into mainstream politics.

“In the last two years, I have been at the forefront agitating for a Nigerian president of southeast extraction, when most of them were all saying “southern presidency.”

Kalu said he was shocked when none of the political actors openly said the southeast geopolitical zone should have the presidency.

He further noted: “I was shocked that even the zone the entire South-East supported in unity including myself in 2011 and 2015 respectively, has the highest number of contestants without thinking of their brothers, knowing fully well that the South-East zone has remained the only zone in Southern Nigeria that has not produced the nation’s president since the rotation convention dispensation that began in 1999.

“Coming to this late hour to support the South-East is rather suspicious to me if they couldn’t do it two years ago. The truth is, Chief Edwin Clark, knows the South-East cannot get the ticket of any party in an open contest as it is today without a gentleman agreement to concede it to the South-East.”

The chief whip of the upper chamber explained that a number of the members of the Peoples Democratic Party were secretly supporting a candidate from the North-East so that the South-East might produce the next president in eight years instead of waiting for 16 years.

He added, “It is rather surprising to me that Chief Edwin Clark didn’t call the majority of other Southerners including governors working against the South-East to order or the names he called me.

“What did you say or do when all the aspirants from South-South and South-West were buying forms to run against South Easterners who have always supported them.