Kingsley Moghalu,  former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has indicated interest in contesting the 2019 presidential election despite the speculations that 2023 will be the turn of the Igbo.

Moghalu told political correspondents in Lagos on Monday that politics in Nigeria should be detribalised for the country to take its rightful place in the comity of nations.

“It is the turn of any competent Nigerian to aspire for the post of presidency because career politicians have failed Nigeria,’’ he said.

Moghalu said time had come for technocrats, intellectuals and experienced people to take power from career politicians, adding that he was consulting widely to run for the presidency in 2019.

“The future of Nigeria rests in technocratic interventions,” he said. “We need thinking people who will take Nigeria from the politics of stomach infrastructure to politics of mental infrastructure.”

He added that zoning, which had been used by the major political parties, might have been relevant in the past but it was no longer necessary because competence should be placed above tribe in present-day Nigeria.

“Zoning was an internal arrangement by political parties that was not constitutional. It should no longer matter where the president comes from,” he said.

Moghalu pointed out that the first step to progress for Nigeria was for the people to begin to think differently and beyond tribe in choosing those who would lead them.

He, however, said President Muhammadu Buhari, has the constitutional rights to seek re-election.

“I don’t fathom how anyone can say the president should not run for a second term,” he said. “It is his choice, the decision on who becomes Nigeria’s president in 2019 rests with Nigerians.”

Moghalu, who is an economist, lawyer and former United Nations official, served as CBN Deputy Governor from 2009 to 2014.

The 55-year-old technocrat is a graduate of the London School of Economics and University of Nigeria Nsukka. He was also a Professor of Practice in International Business and Public Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, US.