The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), has sent a strong warning to former President Goodluck Jonathan and former Lagos State Governor and National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, not to contemplate running in the 2023 presidential election.

MASSOB was reacting to speculations that some governors of the APC in the North have been putting pressure on Jonathan to decamp to the APC and contest on their ticket while a group in the South-West loyal to Tinubu called ‘The South-West Agenda (SWAGA),’ has been putting pressure on the former Governor to throw his hat into the race.

In a statement on Wednesday signed by MASSOB National Leader, Uchenna Madu, the group also warned Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, to bury his interest as not doing so will be “a dangerous systematic way of creating and re-establishing another political discord among the people of the old eastern region.”

MASSOB added that instead of running for the presidency in 2023, Jonathan, Tinubu and Bello should rather bury their ambitions and work towards ensuring that a South-Easterner gets the Presidency.

Madu called on all the political parties to ensure that their presidential ticket is given to “credible South Easterners to ensure equity, justice and fairness in the Nigeria project.”

The statement reads:

“Former President Goodluck Jonathan and his Ijaw kinsmen should be wise enough to discern this subtle and hypocritical move of Arewa governors.

“The Sultan of Sokoto, the Aso villa cabals, the frontline emirs, the Arewa opinion leaders and Islamic gurus, both Nigerians and foreigners, are perfectly aware and systematically pushing for a Goodluck Jonathan one tenure administration.

“Their ultimate political aim is to sideline and frustrate the golden chances of Igbo man or South-East zone to emerge as president of Nigeria.

“MASSOB also warns Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state to bury their presidential ambitions in 2023 because it is solely and sacrosanct for the South-East zone to produce the next president of Nigeria.

“It is not about sentiment or selfishness to support the South-East zone; it is the turn of the South-East zone to produce the next president of Nigeria according to the zoning arrangement.

“Nigeria is already sitting on an explosive time bomb that will eventually explode in 2023 if justice and national integration are not done to the people of South-East in producing the next president of Nigeria.

“The Hausa-Fulani are seriously plotting to scuttle and frustrate the South-East zone’s chances to produce the next president of Nigeria.”