These sectional and regionally exclusive lists of presidential aspirants speak volumes about why Nigeria is the self-handicapped and self-crippled country that it is. How can a country that shackles itself this way ever realize its full human potentials? Nigerians must want to be Nigerians by both words and deeds, at all times, not sometimes. We ought to have a Nigeria where capable candidates from all nooks and corners of the country, during any given political season, would have a common platform to aspire to the highest office in the land. Then, let an open-ended democratic winnowing process whittle down the ensuring list of presidential aspirants from a cross-section of the country to a final list of political party presidential flagbearers, regardless of their ethnic, religious, or gender affiliation.
By their self-centered "zoning" practices, these major Nigerian political parties are imposing artificial limits on Nigeria's political potentials. Nigeria cannot become a great nation by mere wishful thinking, by this self-deceit that is on display here. As a group of contestants, you cannot run an optimal hundred yards track race by partly shackling the feet of some of the runners or even barring potentially sterling members of your team from running at all through a retrograde system known as "zoning." That's a foundation for failure or mediocrity, not success.
If Nigeria does not sincerely wish to become a nation, then let the component parts amicably work out a divorce plan and go their separate ways. But if Nigerians truly want to build a nation with a common destiny, the sooner the ruling elite started acting that way, the more likely that a nation will eventually emerge during our human life time from this conglomerate of ethnic communities. You cannot continue to continually sow the seed of failure and retrogression but schizophrenically expect it to germinate a harvest of success and progress. You are bound to reap what you sow!!!
THE FOURTEEN (14) DECLARED NORTHERN PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANTS IN PDP (ordered strIctly by age)1. Yusuf Datti-Baba-Ahmed - Kaduna (age 48 , former Rep, former Senator)2. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal - Sokoto (age 52, former Speaker, current Governor)3. Abubakar Bukola Saraki - Kwara (age 55, former Governor, serving Senator and President of the Senate)4. Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo - Gombe (age 56, current Governor, former FG Accountant-General)5. Mohammed Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso - Kano (age 61, former Governor, former Minister, serving Senator)6. Kabiru Tanimu Turaki - Kebbi (age 61, former Minister)7. Ibrahim Shekarau - Kano (age 62, former Governor, former Minister)8. Babangida Aliyu - Niger (age 62, former Governor)9. Ahmed Mohammef Makarfi - Kaduna (age 62, former Governor, former Senator)10. Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa - Sokoto (age 63, former Governor)11. David Alechenu Mark - Benue (age 70, serving Senator, former Senate President, retired Brigadier-General)12. Sule Lamido - Jigawa (age 70, former Minister, former Governor)13. Abubakar Atiku - Adamawa (age 71, former Vice President)14. Jonah David Jang - Plateau (age 74, former Governor, retired Air Commodore)PDP Presidential Primary/National Convention: October 6, 2018.---------------------------------- THE ONE (1) DECLARED NORTHERN PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANT IN APCMuhammadu Buhari - Katsina (age 75, former Military Head of State, current President)APC Presidential Primary/National Convention: September 19, 2018:------------------------------------------------------------ ------------ PS:. There are 79 other political parties.------------------------------------------------------------ --------- (C) Bolaji Aluko ( September 2018)--
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