Mamman Daura Breaks Silence On 2023, Says No Zoning, Best Candidate Should Succeed Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari’s influential nephew, Malam Mamman Daura, said yesterday that there is no need for zoning the presidential ticket to any part of the country.

He said Nigeria’s political space should be left open for the best candidate to emerge as president. Regarded as the most powerful personality in Buhari’s administration, Daura in a teaser for an exclusive interview with the Hausa Service of the BBC, said the most qualified person from any part of the country should succeed his uncle.

Buhari’s second term will elapse by 2023; and nocturnal moves have begun in different parts of the country as to which part should produce the next president. There were allegations that some elements from the North were perfecting plans to retain the presidency.

Since the country returned to civil rule in 1999, power had been rotating between the North and the southern part of the country. The quest by blocs in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to take over the control of the party ahead of 2023 had created serious uproar in the polity until President Buhari intervened.

Relative calm was achieved when the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party dissolved the National Working Committee (NWC) in June, 2020, paving way for the constitution of a national caretaker committee chaired by Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State. President Muhammadu Buhari said yesterday that he was satisfied with the way the Mai Mala-led committee was bringing party members together.

Daura’s position on power shift Daura said since Nigerians had tried the rotational presidency about thrice already, it would be better to go for the most qualified candidate in 2023, irrespective of whether he comes from the North or South.

“Rotation has been done once, twice and three times; it is important that this nation should be united as one, the most qualified, competent should be elected and not someone who comes from a particular zone,” he said.