Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the All Progressive Congress APC has zoned its ticket for the office of the president to the south, Blueprint reports.
According to the Chairman APC Registration and Revalidation Panel for Akwa Ibom state, Senator Abubakar Girei, the decision to zone the ticket to the south enjoys the backing of President Muhammadu Buhari and the party.
Represented by Hon Sheriff Banki during the kick-off of APC Registration and Revalidation in Akwa Ibom, Senator Abubakar Girei called on the South-south wing of the party, particularly the youth and the women to mobilise themselves and register ahead of the 2023 election.
He said: “In 2023, the presidency is coming back to the South. I am not saying this by myself, I have the authority of Mr. President, I have the authority of the national chairman of the party to tell you that the presidency is coming back to the South. So, with this, the ball is now in your court.
“I am sure that very soon all of these mushroom parties would also copy us and say their presidency would also come to the South. So, you can see, if you don’t come out en masse to register for APC, our candidate may still not win. So, come out and register and vote for APC in all the elections that are coming.
“We are particularly calling on the youths and women to come out en masse and own this party because we have almost done our own, we are on our way out and we want our sons and daughters to come and take over from us.”
While commending the state chapter of the party for taking the revalidation exercise seriously by turning up for the exercise en masse, Girei noted that the exercise had witnessed skyrocketing registration in less than four days of its commencement across the country, and led to the exhaustion of registration documents.
The former lawmaker said before Wednesday, registration documents would be supplied to all units for people to continue their revalidation.
“You have already shown clearly by coming out en masse to register, the information that we have is that in less than four days, all the registration centres in all the units have almost all exhausted their registration documents.
“If you go to register and they tell you that the forms have finished, don’t worry, more are coming from now till Wednesday, everybody will have the opportunity to register from his own unit and this is the foundation for APC to take over Akwa Ibom come 2023,” the party leader added.