The Southern and Middle-Belt Alliance has described those from the South or Middle-Belt pushing for a President from the core North in 2023 as “political slaves, who are only after their bellies.”

The group said this in a statement on Monday titled, ‘2023: Southerners and Middle Belters pushing for core northern presidential candidates, are political slaves – SaMBA.’

The group, in the statement signed by its Spokesman, Rwang Pam Jnr, insisted that it was not in the interest of Nigeria’s unity for power to remain in the North because a northerner is about to complete eight uninterrupted years of presidency.

The statement read in part, “We have observed that some southerners and Middle-Belters, whose god is their belly, have started drumming support for northern candidates, without any consideration for their peoples’ political aspirations.

“To this group of people, primordial objectives and the fattening of their bank accounts seem to matter most.

“In 2015, the whole of northern Nigeria united to support and realise the presidential ambition of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), because it was the turn of the North to produce the president then. For this reason, it is hypocritical to deny the South its turn at the Presidency.

“If we recall, the threat and demand for a president of northern extraction were so strong that the members of the then ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party were unable to campaign openly for any southern candidates in the North.