AGA woos Atiku with presidential ticket

• Says APC Won’t Give S’East Presidency In 2023 
Newly registered All Grassroots Alliance (AGA) has decided to woo former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to the party with its presidential ticket ahead of the 2019 general elections, even as it declared that its presidential running mate would come from the South East.

Adamawa State chairman of the party, Mr. Titus Joshua Shelleng, who disclosed this to journalists in Yola, yesterday, explained that the decision to woo Atiku was based on the arrangement of the party to zone its presidential ticket to the North East and the vice president position to the South East. 

Shelleng added that the arrangement was in preparation for the eventual shift of the presidency to the South East after Atiku’s tenure, in line with the traditional zoning formula for the emergence of successors from the vice president’s zone. 

“Former President Obasanjo picked his successor from the North because his vice was from the North. South South got the presidential slot because the zone was holding the vice president’s slot. So, I want the Igbo to know that the All Progressives Congress (APC) arrangement did not give room for an Igbo president in 2023,” he said.

Shelleng noted: “With the national chairman coming from South South, vice president from South West, national leader of APC South West, the chances of an Igbo president in 2023 should be seen as cheap deceit to woos Igbo for votes.”He disclosed that a high powered political scout committee has been set up to lobby the former vice president to pick the AGA ticket, pointing out that that is the only hope for Atiku to bring the presidency to the North East and provide opportunities for a South East presidency.

The chairman noted that since the First Republic when Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was elected a ceremonial president from the South East and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was elected as prime minister from the North East, no conscious effort was made to elect any one from these zones to the position of president.He contended that if his party wins the 2019 presidential election, it intends to propose an amendment to the constitution for a six-year single term for the office of president and governors, so as to take away the political pressure of seeking a second term by governors and incumbent presidents.

He described the Peoples Democratic Party and APC as moving corpses, stressing that the two political parties have proved a lack of vision to pilot the ship of state to the Promise Land, noting that his party would also propose a single chamber National Assembly, to cut down on financial expenses and reduce administrative bottlenecks in government.