•Nenadi Usman
As activities gear up for the 2027 general polls, the Labour Party (LP) has zoned its presidential ticket to the southern region of the country.
LP’s National Caretaker Committee Chairman, Nenadi Usman, disclosed this on the sidelines of the meeting with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), reports Channels TV.
“We have one certain decision that we have taken, and that is that we will certainly not field any aspirant from Northern Nigeria. We have zoned the position to southern Nigeria,” Usman said at the event held in Abuja today.
“So if any northerner comes now to want to contest elections, we certainly will not accept that.”
She insisted that the party would adhere to internal democratic processes, declining to name any potential candidate.
“As for who, I can’t tell you now because then it won’t be democratic anymore. Whoever the people like and vote for during the primaries… could be the candidate,” the former minister of finance said.
“To God be the glory, the case was thrown out because it lacked merit,” she noted, adding that the judge “stood on truth”.
She also spotlighted the party’s prospects for the 2027 general elections, hinting at a review of the date for LP’s upcoming congresses due to a surge in membership.
“If we go ahead to stick to that date, to my mind, we are going to disenfranchise quite a number of people,” Usman said.
Although the issue of zoning is not in Nigeria’s constitution, it is adopted by some political parties in the spirit of equity and fairness.
Today’s decision is similar to what panned out in the last general election, where the opposition party adopted a southerner as its presidential candidate.
At the time, while the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the LP zoned their presidential tickets to the south, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) left it open to eligible presidential aspirants.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar later emerged as the PDP flagbearer; ex-Anambra State governor Peter Obi clinched the LP ticket, while a former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, was the APC flag bearer.
Tinubu was declared the winner of the keenly contested 2023 presidential poll. Atiku came second with Obi trailing behind.
