The Presidency has reacted to the call by President Muhammadu Buhari’s nephew, Mamman Daura, that zoning of the Presidency should be jettisoned for competence.

Daura, an influential and controversial figure in the Presidency, made his position known last week in an interview with the BBC Hausa, triggering widespread condemnation.

He said the zoning formula which had been adopted for over two decades in the election of the country’s leader, has failed.

Nigeria’s political leadership has since 1999 been rotated between the southern and northern parts of the country.

The unwritten arrangement has played a key role in determining who emerges the president in the largely ethno-religious sensitive nation.

Southern political leaders expect it will be the turn of the region to produce the president in 2023 when Buhari, from the north-west state of Katsina, completes a second term.

In its reaction earlier, the apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, insisted that it would be the turn of the South, particularly the Southeast, to produce the president in 2023.

The organization warned that equity should not be sacrificed on the altar of “parochialism” since it was the rotation sentiment that produced the incumbent.

In its first public reaction to the controversy, the Presidency said on Saturday that Mr Daura’s comments did not reflect the views of the Buhari administration.

“It is important that we state from the onset that as mentioned by the interviewee, the views expressed were personal to him and did not, in any way, reflect that of either the President or his administration,” spokesperson Garba Shehu said in a statement.