JUDE OSSAI, South-East Bureau Chief, analyses the unending calls by Igbos to take a shot at the Presidency, raising the questions of when and how.
THE Ndigbo are the predominant tribe in the states of the South East including Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, as well as in parts of Delta, Akwa-Ibom, and Rivers States. The tribe is one of the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria, commonly referred to as the tripod.
For years unending, the region has been in the vanguard of agitating for a fair share in the national cake. Even now, the singsong of Igbo marginalisation and Igbo Presidency remain on the lips of key political stakeholders from and outside the zone.
Two key commentators, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, re-ignited the debate recently with well-publicised comments, which have continued to prick the minds of the Igbo political elite. While Dr. Ekwueme advised Igbos to continue the quest for the presidency, from where he had left it, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo had frontally asked Igbos to seek the Presidency in 2019.
Whereas a number of Igbo political elite had subtly been hinting at the zone taking a firm shot at the presidency in 2023, Obasanjo indicated that it is possible for Ndigbo to succeed in their presidential quest in 2019, rather than wait till 2023. Incidentally, Igbos in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have been the ones leading the proposal that Igbos should defer their presidential ambition till 2023.
Both Obasanjo and Ekwueme are not new to politics, having occupied exalted offices in the Presidency at various times in the nation’s political history. And this informs the reason their words are viewed with all seriousness by analysts and political watchers.
Across the streets of the South East, however, the quest for Presidency is not resonating loudly among the average population. It resonates higher among the elite. Among the grassroots, the calls revolve more around the need for immediate restructuring or devolution of power to redress the political imbalance in the country.
Historically, Igbo people are peculiar among the major ethnic groups in Nigeria. They were never subject to powerful caliphates or kingdom, unlike the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba who were under the monarchical leaderships of the Sokoto Caliphate and Oyo Kingdom respectively.
Even the strong and powerful kingdoms in Igboland, such as Nri and Arochukwu, never dominated the less powerful settlements around them.
The non-acceptance of undue domination over others has covertly and overtly pitched Ndigbo against other tribes. For instance, every community in Igboland is fully autonomous and self-governing. In the same vein, inheritable monarchy is not fully accepted in Igboland, unlike what operates in other ethnic nationalities.
Perhaps, it is against the aforementioned background that the recent calls by the eminent statesmen for Igbo presidency in 2019 have continued to generate mixed reactions from both the low and the high spectrum in the country and beyond.
Contrary to what obtained in the past where almost everyone is speaking with one voice on the Igbo Presidency agenda, the situation right now presents a mixed bag. Second Republic Politician, Chief Guy Ikoku, said it will be suicidal for Ndigbo to have one of them as a Nigerian president under the present unitary system in the country, suggesting that the country should be restructured without further delay.
He said in an interview: “Obasanjo knows that the Igbo nation wants Nigeria to return to true federalism, which can be done this year. Therefore, Igbo prefer restructuring of Nigeria to presidential ambition under the present unitary system. The last Igbo man who ruled Nigeria under the unitary system was General Aguiyi Ironsi. He was murdered in the July 1966 counter-coup. Why will another Igbo person want to assume presidency of Nigeria under a unitary system as we have today, when the last person was murdered? Ndigbo are not ready to make the same unsavoury mistake again.”
Indeed, Ikoku is not the only top Igbo voice who is not in consonance with the elder-statesmen and their suggestion for 2019 Igbo presidency. Director- General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, in a reaction to Obasanjo’s nudge on the Igbos, said that the region needed to respect the unwritten rotational principle in Nigerian presidency.
He noted: “Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, our revered elder statesman, to the best of my knowledge, is not a member of any political party, and therefore cannot give what he doesn’t possess. There is a political convention in Nigeria, which he is one of the greatest beneficiaries, which is like most convention unwritten in the constitution, that rotates power between North and South.
“The maxim states that in political domain there is the law with its legal teeth and the convention with its moral weigh and the political convention today in Nigeria of which the ex-president is a prime beneficiary i.e. Rotation of president – South 8 years and North 8 years.
“Is it not better for Ndigbo, who supported Obasanjo with votes in 1999 and 2003, and supported Jonathan with votes in 2011 and 2015, to, at least, support Buhari with votes in 2019 and take their turn in 2023, instead of jumping gun?
“We stand by that convention. Since our entry into the Fourth Republic in 1999, we supported Obasanjo, the South-West by extension, we supported Jonathan, South-South by extension, now that Ndigbo has resolved to support Buhari, we are hopeful of 2023.″
Inside sources said that the meeting between Dr. Ekwueme and the PDP Strategy Committee in Enugu, a fortnight ago, might not be unconnected with the views on Igbo presidency as recently canvassed by the elder statesmen, even as the leader of the delegation, Alhaji Aminu Wali, explained to reporters in Enugu that they were in Ekwueme’s Enugu residence to submit a copy of their final report to him.
Alhaji Wali and his committee members, who were in a closed-door meeting with Ekwueme, said that the committee was saddled with the responsibility of reviewing all aspects of the party to determine areas where challenges need to be tackled.
Apparently referring to Ekwueme’s outburst that the PDP was hijacked by “strangers” causing the party to lose the 2015 presidential election, Wali reiterated that their party will be rebranded to return to the vision of the founding fathers.
The question remains whether the leadership of the PDP, with its unending crisis will give listening ear to Ekwueme. Dr. Ekwueme had cautioned the leadership of PDP against a repeat of their failure in the 2015 presidential election, urging them to resuscitate internal democracy in the party ahead of the 2019 general polls.
The elder-statesman noted that it was lack of internal democracy that caused the party’s downfall in the last general election, advising members of the committee to genuinely reconcile aggrieved members of the party, especially those who left for other political parties.
The question of genuine reconciliation became imperative as the duo of Obasanjo and Ekwueme seem to be still aggrieved over the development in PDP.
While Obasanjo left the party amidst controversy during the ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, Ekwueme had tactically given way to the “invaders” since he lost out in the presidency power game in 2003.
Will the PDP leadership pacify Ekwueme and Obasanjo by producing a presidential candidate of an Igbo extraction in 2019?
To Barrister Humphrey Nwodo, a former Special Aide to ex-governor Chimaroke Nnamani, it is only when a PDP flag-bearer of Igbo stock emerges against any likely presidential candidate of APC, that one can talk of an Igbo presidency being feasible in 2019.
A source said that Igbo elite at the highest level are plotting to replace Yoruba either as vice president or president, depending on how the 2019 power game plays out.
Notwithstanding, the repeated calls for Igbo Presidency among the vocal elements in the polity, the fact remains that today; the Igbo are widely divided on this subject. Should it be 2019 or 2023? That is the question the south East will answer in the course of time.