President, Major General (retd.) Muhammadu Buhari’s nephew, Mamman Daura wants power to remain in the north beyond 2023, Senator Shehu Sani has said.

He stated this in a Wednesday tweet in reaction to Daura’s viral comment on a BBC Hausa Service programme on Tuesday.

The President’s nephew and confidante said calls for zoning were unnecessary and competence should be the primary consideration to be elected president of Nigeria going forward.

He noted that the nation already experimented with the idea of rotational presidency three times, saying it was high time it broke from the norm and enthroned competence above nepotism going into the 2023 general election.

According to him, rotational presidency and clamour for power shift would not help the nation’s efforts to forge a common identity.

Daura said:

“This turn-by-turn, it was done once, it was done twice, and it was done thrice… It is better for this country to be one… It should be for the most competent and not for someone who comes from somewhere.”

Reacting, Sani said that the comment was Daura’s less difficult way of saying that the presidency should remain in the North beyond 2023.

“The translation of ‘No to Zoning’ from Latin to English is ‘That Power should remain in the North of River Jordan’,” Sani wrote.