2023: APC Chieftain backs Mamman Daura over power shift

A Chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Bayelsa State, Hon. Sunday Frank-Oputu has backed Mamman Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari’s nephew, on power shift ahead of 2023 general elections.

Mamman Daura had in an interview with BBC Hausa Service recently said the most qualified Nigerian should succeed Buhari in 2023, irrespective of the zone such candidate comes from.

Hon. Oputu, who spoke in an exclusive interview in Yenagoa, on Sunday insisted that competence, pedigree and capacity should determine the choice of who becomes the President rather than rotation which always imposes poor leadership on the people.

He said, “Well I want to say, with all sense of humility that the position of an executive, by the Nigerian constitution; the position and the authority it drives is too absolute so in that case, I think that Nigeria has to really assess the kind of person that should go for that kind of an executive position.

“There should be some kind of character assessment on the individual that should hold claim to such a position.

“So if we are to rotate it, and because we have rotated it people do not look at it from the aspect of who really qualifies for that position or the man that can really take that absolute power and make good use of it to the betterment of all”.

“These assessments must be the first criteria not just from south or north. So, there should be a way that when a man has a better pedigree no matter where he comes from he should be the source so that there should be some transformation if not developmentally we are stagnant.

“So I think the issue of zoning, should not be the thing to discuss, particularly when it has to do with executive powers which have absolute control we should look at the human factor, this man what are his antecedents and then give him, even if he has to go for ten tenures as far as what society needs, is provided because our own we are not going further rather we are a little lower at every point when it is scaled among developing countries in the world.”

“Even if your candidate is a useless one you will still use your population to impose him on the people. If it is on that basis, that he said the zoning should not be there, then I am against it but if it’s for merit as a man that should be president of Nigeria I think zoning should not be there”.

“We should look at the merits, and demerits of candidates who are vying for the position to give them the mandate not because of where they come from, then we give to the wrong person, and he draws us backwards.