Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Orji Kalu, has said multiple presidential aspirants from the South-East will not diminish the region’s chances of producing the next President come 2023.

Kalu, a former governor of Abia State, has not hidden his desire to contest in the 2023 presidential election. While he’s yet to declare his ambition, the Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, and former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, both from the South-East, have declared their ambition to run for the presidency.

This led to insinuations that the South-East is not united at forging a common front, which might ruin the region’s chances of producing the next President.

However, Kalu who spoke during an interview with Silverbird Television on Friday rebuffed the assertions. According to him, since 1999, no region had ever presented a single candidate before winning elections.

The Senator recalled how former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Bola Ige and Olu Falae, all from the South-West geopolitical zone of the country, contested the 1999 presidential election.

He said the belief that Igbo must come together to present a single candidate in order to produce the next President of Nigeria were mere blackmails promoted by the media.

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He said, “No region forges a common front and I have just given you an example. When Obasanjo ran for elections in 1999, Olu Falae, Bola Ige and three other Yoruba(men) were also contesting for the same presidency. Did that stop the emergence of a President from the South-West? So what are you talking about? It is the beauty of constitutional democracy, the more the merrier, people must contest and the people must choose who can do the job.

That Orji Kalu came to contest and another Igboman comes out does not mean you won’t vote Orji Kalu. The beauty of democracy is in the ability to make a choice. That is why I initially told my friends (Tinubu, Umahi and Anyim) in the sitting room where we were eating that I won’t run but the beauty of it is that people later persuaded me to come and run because they know that I’m capable of doing the job.

“They know that I have the experience of the job. They know that I have local and international connections. They know I have an excellent understanding of the country. And when you look at me you see the face of Nigeria.”