The Minister of Art, Culture, and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, believes that the presidency should remain with southern Nigeria for the next term to ensure equity and balance.

Nigeria practices an unofficial power-sharing deal between the North and South, with each region taking turns to produce the President.

President Bola Tinubu, from the South-West region, took over from former President Muhammadu Buhari, who is from the North-West. While there have been debates as to which region the President should come from in the 2027 election, especially with the newly formed coalition on the plaftform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Musawa said power should remain in southern Nigeria for the sake of fairness.

“So, it is understandable that after eight years of President Buhari, who is from the North, power needed to shift down to the South, right? So now, you know how it is—for the next two years, four years, it is going to be with the southern presidency, and hopefully, power should continue for the next four years after that to be with the southern presidency only to create that sort of balance,” the minister said on Friday during an interview on Channnels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday.

“Hopefully, one day we’ll be able to get over that, and candidates will only be judged on their capacity and what they have to bring to the table. But since we are not there yet, for the benefit of this politics now, power should certainly, for the next four to six years, remain in the southern part of the country.”

Power should stay in the south for the next 6 years to create a balance.

ADC Member’s ‘Strategy’

On Tuesday, actor-turned-politician, Kenneth Okonkwo, advised the ADC to pick a northerner as its presidential candidate for the 2027 election.

Okonkwo, a member of the opposition ADC, said President Tinubu was guaranteed a return ticket if the coalition platform, which enjoys the membership of top politicians, fields a southern flagbearer.

“My strategy this time around is that I am going to support a northerner in 2027,” Okonkwo said on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

“It must be a northerner that the whole north is willing to support. If the whole north is willing to support Atiku, why not? If the whole north is willing to support Tambuwal, why not? The person must be qualified, and if he has experience in the Presidency, it is an added advantage, and when he puts up something from the South, that will push him through,” he said.

‘Zoning is Important’

However, Musawa, one of the youngest ministers in Tinubu’s cabinet and from the northern region, said maintaining the power-sharing deal was key to the country’s stability and giving people a sense of belonging.

“I think zoning is important only because we have not been able to get over the doldrums of ethnicity, and we’re not looking at ourselves as Nigeria, and I think you spoke about that poem, ‘I am a Nigerian’ that I wrote and produced, a couple of months ago, which will be coming back onto the airways very soon,” the minister said on the breakfast show.

“So, now we have not gotten over that, and because we’ve not gotten over that, I think every part of Nigeria, or rather the different— the north and the south—have to feel as if they’re being carried along.”

Zoning Splits PDP, Wike Insists On Southern Presidency

In 2023, Nigeria’s leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), fielded former Vice President Atiku Abubakar from the northern region as its candidate.

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) zoned its ticket to the southern region and produced Tinubu as its candidate.

PDP’s decision, however, did not go down well with some members of its party, notably a former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who believed it was the southern region’s turn to produce a president.

Wike, now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, supported Tinubu’s presidential ambition. He accused the PDP of going against its constitution by not zoning the presidency to the South. The former governor, ahead of the 2027 election, maintains that the southern region must complete its eight-year term for the sake of equity. (Channels TV)