Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo state has said there is no constitutional provisions against Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket that has been a source of concern to some Nigerians.
Addressing State House correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, the governor said elections are about numbers and not the faith of candidates.
“I’ll start from the nomination, ethnicity, or followership. In this business of democracy, I think number is what is very important. And there are certain things as a nation, we should not bring to the public discourse, those things that are capable of creating divisiveness against national unity should not be encouraged. It does not mean that I will not remember that I come from a place but I must also be cautious and careful how to use where I come from in taking national decisions. That is very important.
“When I appeared on Channels in the morning of the convention, I told you that one of the conventions governing our polity in Nigeria is power shift. That power comes to the north and goes to the south. When power came to the south, in 1999, we seeded it to Southwest and all of us voted as Nigerians. The next time power came to the south, it went to south south and all of us voted as Nigerians. We expected that now that power came back to the south, it will go to South East but this is not a decision that a geopolitical zone alone can make. No geopolitical zone can become a president without the participation of other political zones. So when you don’t get the cooperation, you begin to find out why and work towards getting the cooperation next time, because it has to be united country for you to become a president.
“We’re not talking about President of South East, president of south south or president of Southwest, we are talking of the president of Nigeria. For a Southerner to become a president he needs to vote for north, for northerner to become the president he needs the vote from the south.
“In our constitution, in two third of the states you must have at least minimum of 25% votes registered in those states. Today, so we’ll look at the guidelines. We’ll look at the rules. Our country is a rule driven country and the grand norm is the constitution of the country. So we’re working with it,” he said.