Femi Adesina: South-east must play proper politics to have a shot at presidency

Femi Adesina, presidential spokesperson, says the south-east must play the “proper” kind of politics to have a shot at the presidency. 

Speaking on the clamour for the south-east to produce the next president in 2023, Adesina said it is only possible if the zone aligns with others.

The presidential spokesperson said the south-east has always maintained the same voting pattern during presidential elections — and it is not working.

“Every part of the country deserves to produce the president and right from my days in the newspapers, I had always been writing, advising the south east on how to get it. But till now, I wouldn’t say they have played the proper kind of politics,” he said in an interview with Vanguard.

“To become president in Nigeria, you need to align with the rest of the country and if you don’t align, you can never produce a president.

“President Buhari had to align with the south-west before he became president. If the south-east continues to vote the same way they have been voting in one direction and that direction is not working, yet they continue, then, they need to re-address their politics.

“Before 2015 and then, 2019, some Igbo leaders of thoughts, Orji Kalu, Ngige, Ralph Obioha, all of them, even at a point, Prof ABC Nwosu said it. That was in 2011. He said the shortest route to Igbo presidency is to vote the Buhari/Bakare ticket in 2011 and then, Buhari/Osinbajo ticket in 2015 and 2019.

“But how did the south-east vote, they still went in the same direction.”

Commenting on insecurity in the country, Adesina said Nigeria would have been consumed by insurgency if President Muhammadu Buhari did not assume office in 2015.

“You know that in 2015, the main issue in the country was insurgency. That insurgency was in the north-east, it was in north-west, it was in north-central because Abuja was being serially bombed,” he said.

“It was already in Kogi. From Kogi, where did you think it was going? It was south-west. And if you went to the south-west, the only place left would be the south-south.

“The whole country would have been consumed and there would have been no country again, if not that President Buhari came in in 2015.”