2027: North-Central stakeholders begin consultation, meet ex-NSA

Following the threat to dump President Bola Tinubu if he fails to field a vice-presidential candidate from their geopolitical zone, North-Central stakeholders have begun consultation with political bigwigs and former public officeholders ahead of the 2027 election.

The delegation held a closed-door meeting on Saturday with a former National Security Adviser, General Aliyu Gusau; a former lawmaker, Senator John Danboyi; the Onah of Abaji, His Royal Highness Alhaji Musa Baba Yunusa; and others to push for the agenda of North Central Presidency.

This was disclosed in a statement issued by the leader of the delegation and Chairman of the North-Central Renaissance Movement, Prof. Nghargbu K’tso.

The move comes two days after hundreds of stakeholders and party leaders from the region announced at a press conference that after 65 years of marginalisation, they had agreed to work together to produce the next President.

They, however, gave Tinubu a condition to back his re-election if he agreed to drop the current Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, for one of their own as his running mate ahead of the next poll.

The PUNCH reported that the party leaders at the summit comprised representatives from the six states of the North-Central namely Benue, Kwara, Kogi, Plateau, Niger, Nasarawa and the Federal Capital Territory.

The statement read, “The North Central is strengthening advocacy for the return of presidency to the zone come 2027 through high-level consultations with prominent figures in the geo-political zone and Nigeria at large.

“The leadership of the movement was earlier received by the former national security adviser General Aliyu Gusau, Senator John Danboyi and the Onah of Abaji, His Royal Highness Alhaji Musa Baba Yunusa to push for the agenda of North Central Presidency in 2027.

“We appealed for the cooperation of Nigerians to make the agitation a reality and put the region in the equation of other zones who have enjoyed the constitutional right of producing president and vice president in Nigeria as the zone has what it takes to lead rather than to be led all the times.”

According to him, the zone has suffered a great political setback since the post-independence government and returned to democracy in 1999 through the denial of the president and vice president slots and many years of political manoeuvring with only the office of national chairmen of political parties to contend with.