Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu has on Saturday declared that the Southern part of the country must produce the next President, comes 2023.
He said this while delivering the 45th convocation lecture of Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Saturday.
Akeredolu, who is an alumnus of the university, delivered the convocation lecture with the theme, “When is a Nation? Exploring the Social-Political Crises in Post Independence Nigeria”.
Akeredolu said: “All persons must own the process of development in the country. No section must feel marginalized. In 2023, power must shift to the South.”
Akeredolu said Nigeria cannot survive the way things were going and that the nation is losing its identity.
He, however, said that the nation has the capacity to overcome its challenges, saying lack of trust and credibility deficiency is the bane of Nigeria’s development.
He said “No nation survives on hand-outs from other climes. Loss of identity is too big a pride to pay for the new social order. Any society which suffers such misfortune can only develop to the extent to which the logic of domination and dependence permits. All the adventure in constitutional administration of the colonial territory failed to take into account the peculiarities of the people who had been forced to live together under one central administration for the first time. I pray we are not doomed.”
