The Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma, has appealed to the two big political parties to feature presidential aspirants from the South East to allow equity, justice and fairness.
According to the Governor, such should be done as it was done in 1999 when all political parties fielded candidates from the South-West.
Uzodinma who spoke to journalists said this will help in addressing the plight of the South-East region which is yet to produce a president in Nigeria.
The Governor said: “I know that in the South East today, we desire to produce the president of Nigeria but we will not do it alone. We need the other political zones and other political parties to work with us.
“If you recall, in 1999, after the annulment of June 12 election, it was the decision of the national political leadership of Nigeria that the South West produced the President.
“Part of what cooled the tension in the Southwest was allowing them to produce the President and then, there were two leading political parties. Both political parties worked internally to produce two presidential candidates that came from the South West. That meant that whichever party that won the election, the President would have come from the South West.
“Now, the situation is repeating itself. There’s a national sympathy for South-East to produce the president and what will make it work is for the two ruling political parties to produce candidates from the south East.
“Let PDP and APC also produce candidates from the South East. That way, we would have decentralized this power-sharing in a manner that it has become all-inclusive and justice and equity would have been seen to be done,” Uzodimma appealed