Emma Nzomiwu, Chukwujekwu Ilozue and Seyi Taiwo-Oguntuase
The
determination of the ruling All Progressives Party (APC) to return the
incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 by all means may be
responsible for the divisive and bitter carrots being dangled by Vice
president Yemi Osinbajo and secretary to the government of the
federation, Boss Mustapha and Minister of Works, Housing and power,
Babatunde Fashola on the 2023 presidency.
The development has set
the people of South East and South West on what analysts regard as
confusion, even as quiet animosity is creeping in gradually with the two
zones laying claims, based on the promises from the three top
government and party officials.
Specifically, last week, Vice
President, Yemi Osinbajo told his Yoruba kinsmen to vote for President
Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 to guarantee the return of presidency to the
Southwest in 2023.
Osinbajo who spoke when he visited the Alaafin
of Oyo, Lamidi Adeyemi III warned that if Buhari did not return in
2019, then it would take a long time for a Yoruba man to occupy the
presidency again.
Earlier in the year, Fashola had urged his
kinsmen to vote for the reelection of Buhari for the assurance of
clinching the presidency in 2023.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the last Yorubaman who was President, held power from 1999 to 2007.
Before
Osinbajo and Fashola rekindled the controversy over which zone should
produce the President after President Buhari in 2023, the South East was
already positioning itself for presidency in 2023, based on what the
proponents allude to the principle of equity.
Although the South
East had been clamouring for a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction
even from the inception of this democracy in 1999, the Secretary to the
Federal Government, Boss Mustafa raised the hope of the zone in April
this year when he said South East would have a brighter chance if its
votes for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.
The SGF made this
commitment at a pro-Buhari rally organised by Imo State Governor, Owelle
Rochas Okorocha, which held at Owerri, the state capital.
Since
then, some APC leaders in the South-East had been leveraging on the
statement of SGF to ask Ndigbo to vote for Buhari until last week when
Osinbajo reechoed the South West permutation into 2019 presidency
politics.
Reacting in an interaction with journalists on
Christmas Eve, Ike Ekweremadu, Deputy Senate President and highest
political office holder from the South East, said the issue was not
about making promises but fulfilling them.
On the promise of the
ruling APC to give Ndigbo presidency in 2023, if they vote for Buhari,
Ekweremadu said, “This is the nature of politics. So, promises will be
made. So, we just hope that those who make promises will be able to keep
their promises.”
But, Ohanaeze flayed Osinbajo over his comment that Yoruba should vote for Buhari in 2019 to guarantee 2023 presidency
Speaking
through Chuks Ibegbu, Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Ohanaeze
described as unfortunate comments credited to Vice President Osinbajo
that the presidency would go to the Southwest in 2023.
Ibegbu, warned of the consequences of taking Ndigbo as fools in the Nigerian project.
Disclosing
that it would meet in January to review the country’s political
situation and adopt a position against the coming elections, Ohanaeze
said that the Igbo remained an integral part of Project Nigeria and as
such should be treated with respect.
Goddy Uwarurike,Former
President of Aka Ikenga says Presidency coming to Igbo is not a favour
and it should not be a campaign issue, insisting that “anybody
canvassing that is arrant nonsense and anybody canvassing such a bill is
a charlatan, it is not a true son of Igbo land, he is just a merchant.
Presidency coming to Igbo is not a favour and we are not looking for any
favour. They should bury that taught we will get it as a right and not
as a faovur.”
Monday Ubani, legal practitioner says” I think the
Igbos must be a little more organised. Any ethnic group that is hoping
to take presidential seat in 2023 without taking into consideration the
Igbos must be all “joking, selfish and highly insensitive of the unity
of the country. This is because the Yoruba have taken presidential seat
for 8 years and currently a Yoruba man is the vice president, and it
will be a great insensitivity on the part of the Yoruba again to be
canvassing for another 2023 when the Igbo have not been given that
opportunity.”
A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Sir
Chris Obikwelu beleived that Igbo have toiled for Nigeria and,
therefore, deserve the presidency. Obikwelu said: “The South East has
laboured enough to occupy the Presidency of this country. We fought for
independence. Some people will say the Igbo have occupied the seat
through the great Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, but let me tell you, Zik was a
ceremonial president which was virtually not active”.
Also, the
Zonal Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC),
Igboeli Arinze Napoleon felt that after President Muhammadu Buhari’s
second term in office, power would come to the Southeast irrespective of
what any one wants to believe.
According to Arinze, “The talk
that power would go to the Southwest in 2023 by Igbo leaders rooting for
Atiku Abubakar as self-defeatist.
“By 2023, all the major ethnic
groups in Nigeria except the Igbo who are the single largest ethnic
group in Nigeria would have produced an occupant for the highest office
in the land.”
However, some politicians are not enthusiastic about the Igbo clinching the Presidency in 2023.
Anambra
State chairman of PDP, Chief Ndubisi Nwobu is one of them. Nwobu said
that hoping on APC to make Igbo presidency a reality in, 2023 is an
illusion.
His reason: “You heard Mr. Babatunde Fashola say that
by 2023, the Presidency will go to the West. So, anybody talking about
that is talking nonsense. You have heard the Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo say it too. The Igbo in APC are not even near the corridor of
power. They don’t go near where the matter is discussed, talk less of
getting close.
But, Osita Okechukwu, Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON) described the development as a wake-up-call for Ndigbo.
According
to Okechukwu, it is a wake-up-call for Ndigbo in the true sense of the
word that equity, natural justice, and good conscience, are the
advantages on their side.
He noted that the South East is the
only geopolitical zone in the Southern Belt that has not presided over
Nigeria since 1999 that the rotation of president convention took off.
“President
of Nigeria of Igbo extraction in 2023 is a Win-Win-Scenario, and golden
opportunity for Ndigbo to end the vexatious issue of marginalisation
and create a sense of belonging in the Nigerian family.
On the
issue of 4 years, he said Buhari’s remaining 4 years post 2019 was cast
in constitutional stone, while His Excellency Atiku Abubakar’s own could
at best, be seen as a pledge.
“Atiku’s manifesto is six year
plan. Therefore Buhari’s option is the quickest and surest route to
Nigeria president of Igbo extraction,” Okechukwu said.
But
Senator Ben Obi, a member of the PDP Presidential Council and Director
of the Campaign’s CUPP/Inter-party Directorate, said the comment by Vice
President Yemi Osinbajo on 2023 elections was insensitive and height of
mischief.
Obi berated Osinbajo for asserting that the presidency would revert to the South West after Buhari in 2023.
“Apart
from the fact that the PDP will win the 2019 presidential election in
which case Osinbajo’s reckless and morally outrageous scenario will
never come to pass, the mere thought of making that insensitive
declaration after Obasanjo’s 8-year presidential tenure and Osinbajo’s
4-year vice presidency, in the context in which power is yet to rotate
to the South East, is the height of political intolerance and
mischief-making,” he said.
Nonetheless, the South East zone of
Nigeria appear to be divided for now over who to support between Buhari
of APC and former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential
candidate of PDP..
While a summit of Igbo leaders chaired by
Professor Ben Nwabueze endorsed Atiku alongside his running mate, Peter
Obi, the Igboezue Cultural Advancement Initiative led by Chief Chekwas
Okorie threw the weight behind President Muhammadu Buhari
In a
communiqué read after the first session of the summit by Olisa Agbakoba
(SAN), the Igbo leaders threw their weight behind the candidature of
Obi/Atiku, acknowledging that it puts Ndigbo back at the centre of
governance.
The communiqué read in part: “We identify with the
Atiku/Obi ticket on the restructuring agenda as has been reiterated by
four zones of the country, namely, South-South, South-West, North
Central and South-East.
“We believe that as long as the
federating units remain weak, the centre will continue to be weak. We
equally move to appreciate the position of Atiku/Obi ticket in promoting
national unity.
The summit reiterated that the time is now for Ndigbo to mobilize and organize effectively to realize the Ati/Obi ticket.
“We
are not campaigning against anybody. We are simply campaigning for our
very survival. Igbo votes must count wherever Ndigbo live in Nigeria,”
it stated
But, the Igboezue Cultural Advancement Initiative led
by Chief Chekwas Okorie rejected the decision of the Nwabueze group to
support Obi/Atiku ticket, saying it was taken without consultation.
Rather, Igbozue adopted President Muhammadu Buhari of APC as its candidate for 2019 presidential election.
Okorie, the National Leader of Igboezue, made their position known at a press briefing in Enugu last Thursday.
According
to Okorie, their decision to adopt Buhari was taken after an extensive
consultation and liaison with extant Igbo Associations, institutions and
stakeholders on the state of the Nigerian nation.
The Igboezue
leader who doubles as National Chairman of United Progressives Party
(UPP), said four more years for President Muhammadu Buhari would be by
far, better and more bearable than the possible eight years of Alhaji
Atiku Abubakar, which would bring back sad memories of PDP emasculation
of Ndigbo.
“We are conscious of the truth that the PDP has not
made any form of commitment to the restructuring of Nigeria or the much
desired Igbo president of Nigeria any time in the future. Anything that
PDP says now will definitely be an afterthought. Ndigbo be wise,” Okorie
said.
wOkorie said it was the conviction of Igboezue that the
relevance of the Igbo as critical stakeholder and factor in Nigeria’s
power equation can no longer be left solely in the hands of political
leaders who purport to represent the Igbo people in their public
pronouncements without consultation of any kind with stakeholders.
“We
find it too compromising and unacceptable. In this regard, Igboezue has
taken time to establish an effective network that has linked up all
identified Igbo organizations, associations and professional bodies to
what we refer to as the Igbo National Grid.
“It is our confirmed
observation that after the great and legendary Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe led our
people on the platform of the National Council of Nigerian Citizens
(NCNC) to form a coalition Government with the Northern People’s
Congress (NPC) with the active collaboration of defunct Igbo State Union
and a similar political alliance in the Second Republic in which the
Late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe led the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) to enter
into an accord to form a Joint Government with the National Party of
Nigeria. Igbo political leaders have failed since then to provide
selfless leadership that will chart the path for the continued political
relevance of Ndigbo in Nigeria,” Okorie stated.
Source:- Independentng
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