The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has described as unfortunate the comment credited to the former chairman, Daar Communications Limited, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, that no southern candidate could win the presidency in 2023 under the Peoples Democratic Party.

Dokpesi had in a media report stated that there was no candidate from the South-East and even from the South that  would win again the North.

But Ohanaeze Ndigbo in a statement on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Alex Ogbonnia, titled, ‘Dokpesi Oscillates,’ said the former Daar Communications chairman’s comments “negates the position of the 17 Southern Governors that presidency should return to the South in 2023.”

The group added, “Dokpesi’s assumptions are unreflective, weird and unworthy. Any person who loves Nigeria should be an advocate of power rotation especially between the North and the South; and our sons and daughters who lay claim to leadership should not, under any guise, give the impression that the South is a lame-duck, an electoral liability; and therefore must depend on the North to define the political trajectory of Nigeria.”

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Ohanaeze said as one of the leaders of the South-South People Assembly, Dokpesi ought to promote South-South people of Nigeria with his fortune instead of playing to the gallery to appeal the North.

The statement partly reads, “There there is no reason for the condescension and disdain he handed over to the entire South.

“I sympathize with our southern son, Chief Dokpesi, because he started as the personal assistant to Alhaji Bamaga Tukur at the Nigerian Ports Authority. Dokpesi also served under Alhaji Umaru Dikko and General Garba Wushishi. Records reveal that Alhaji Bamanga Tukur paid his fees from secondary school to the post graduate level. To that extent, he owes allegiance to his benefactors and feels no compunction to profile the entire south as electoral liability.”

Ohanaeze noted that the 17 southern governors had agreed on the on the need for a power shift to the South, adding that Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi committee on zoning even declared that the national chairmanship of “the Peoples Democratic Party should go to the North, while the Presidency should go to the South.”

The group said, “It is therefore curious, the kind of appraisal parameters or the kind of epitaph that the business mogul, Dr Raymond Dokpesi wishes to be remembered.”

Ohanaeze added that  rotation of presidency between the North and the South was the truth for justice and progress in Nigeria.