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Igbo Presidency: Crucial to Nigeria’s survival beyond 2023 [Viewpoint]

…Focus On The Return Of Democracy In Nigeria from 1999

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By Nnamani Arinze Darlington

In 1998, PDP conducted her first presidential primary election which was held in Jos, Plateau State, North Central. During the primary election, Nigerians nominated former military leader, Olusegun Obasanjo who had just been released from detention as a political prisoner, to be the presidential candidate in the February 1999 general election, with Atiku Abubakar (the then Governor-Elect of Adamawa State and a former leading member of the SDP) as his running mate. The duo won the presidential election and were inaugurated on 29th May 1999. Subsequently, on 19th April 2003, Olusegun Obasanjo was re-elected with 61% of the votes.

In December 2006, Late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was chosen as the Presidential candidate of the then ruling PDP for the April 2007 general election. Yar’Adua was eventually declared winner of the 2007 general election held on April 21, and was sworn in May 2007.

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In 2010, power shifted unexpectedly to Jonathan who assumed the role of Acting President following the doctrine of necessity after Yar’Adua fell ill; he was sworn into Presidency following Yar’Adua’s death in May of the same year.

Jonathan announced in September, his intention to run in the 2011 Presidential election, which he later got after winning the PDP Presidential primaries.

The South-south has no moral justification to contest now since the South easterners have not had its own share of the Presidential Pie.

In the 2015 elections, then incumbent, President Jonathan and PDP Presidential nominee (from the South South), was defeated by General Muhammadu Buhari of the APC with 55% against 45% votes, losing by 2.6 million votes.

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Why the Southeast?

From 1999 to 2007, Olusegun Obasanjo was the President and he hails from Ogun State in the South West geopolitical zone of Nigeria, while Atiku Abubakar who was the Vice President is from Adamawa, North East geopolitical zone. From 2007 to  2010, Late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was the President and he hailed from Kastina State in the North West geopolitical zone of Nigeria, while Jonathan, his Vice, was from Bayelsa State in the South south geopolitical zone. Between 2010 and 2015, Goodluck Jonathan was the President and hails from Bayelsa State in the South south geopolitical zone, while his Vice, Namadi Sambo, hails from Kaduna State in the Northwest geopolitical zone.

When the Southern Nigeria Governors Forum started a meeting, and were issuing communiques insisting and saying that the next President should come from the south, I initially thought that it was a good way of trying to narrow the Presidency to the South eastern Nigeria. I never knew that our brothers were just playing to the gallery, watering and making their ground fertile to contest against the South easterners when they are suppose to support us now than ever before, considering the political tension in the zone against marginalization and injustice.

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Ohaneze and some of our Igbo political leaders who should be speaking up now like His Excellency Distinguished Senator Orji uzor Kalu, are silently observing table manners. Our silence in the face of ineptitude, our insincerity and acquaintances in the face of nepotism and favoritism, our complexity and “e no concern me” attitude  when things are going wrong is just something that is very appalling.

In all the political parties, big and small, there are Igbos of considerable weight, who want to be president. They include, Mr. Peter Obi, Fmr. Governor of Anambra State, Chief Anyim Pius Anyim, Fmr. Senate President, David Umahi, Governor of Ebonyi State, Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, Fmr. Deputy Governor Of the Central Bank of Nigeria, among others. They all have the capacity to lead this nation, but Mr. Peter Obi is seen as the most sellable and acceptable candidate, judging from his antecedents and his present ideology about Politics and Governance.

Aside the razzmatazz for Igbo Presidency by the South easterners, with the current security, political and economic state of the nation, Mr. Peter Obi is the one whom the presidential cap will fit best because he is a man with impeccable and exceptional character, finesse, incorruptible, panache, poise and astuteness with digital economic and political ideology that will salvage the current ugly situation of the Nigeria State.

Politics they say is a zero sum game in which the winner takes everything and the loser loses everything. That is why the Igbos can only get the presidency by aligning with other zones and pushing hard by any means they can to convince the majority. This is where the role of Ohaneze and the Igbo leaders come in.

One of the 68 Constitutional Amendment bills passed by the National Assembly recently was that which sought to allow for independent candidacy. If this bill scales through by 2/3 of the various States Houses of Assembly and the President finally assents to it, candidates like Mr. Peter Obi will never find it difficult to emerge and win elections, unlike the situation we have now where only those with bags of dollars are likely to win elections in Nigeria.

Nigerians should also know that “IGBO PRESIDENCY” is crucial to the survival of Nigeria beyond 2023, because denying Igbos 2023 PRESIDENCY will worsen secession agitations considering the tempo already attained, but the next President of Igbo extraction will calm nerves, settle scores and make the people feel among. The major Political parties should zone their Presidential tickets to the South East to prove her doctrine of justice, equity and fairness.

Nnamani Arinze Darlington writes from Enugu