The Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma has called for the presidency to be zoned to the South East.
Uzodinma said the two main parties - All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) - should zone their tickets to the region.
The governor made the call during a chat with journalists in Lagos on Sunday.
Uzodinma urged the two political parties to choose their presidential candidates from the South East in the interest of equity, justice and fairness.
The governor stated that it is time the South East produce the next Nigerian President, adding that the region has been marginalised for too long.
However, Uzodinma said the South East will need other zones and other political parties to work with the region to achieve the Igbo presidency in 2023.
He said: “I know that in the South East today, we desire to produce the president of Nigeria but we will not do it alone. We need the other political zones and other political parties to work with us.
“If you recall, in 1999, after the annulment of the June 12 election, it was the decision of the national political leadership of Nigeria that the South-West produced the President.
“Part of what cooled the tension in the Southwest was allowing them to produce the President and then, there were two leading political parties.
“Both political parties worked internally to produce two presidential candidates that came from the South West. That meant that whichever party won the election, the President would have come from the South West.
“Now, the situation is repeating itself. There’s a national sympathy for the South-East to produce the president and what will make it work is for the two ruling political parties to produce candidates from the region.
“Let PDP and APC also produce candidates from the South East. That way, we would have decentralized this power-sharing in a manner that it has become all-inclusive and justice and equity would have been seen to be done.”