The Coalition of the South East Youth Leaders,(COSEYL) the apex Socio-Political Youth group in the South East zone has insisted that the position of Senate President be zoned the South East.
Addressing a world press conference in Owerri on Monday, the President General of COSEYL, Goodluck Ibem said that the zone will not accept anything less than the senate presidency.
COSEYL, while giving reasons on their stand said Ndigbo has long been relegated to the background, especially in the politics of the nation, asserting that they can never be shelved around like errand boys
He said “Giving the Igbo the 7th position at a time when after 8 years in office, no Igbo person had been in the principal positions of the Ninth Assembly, or had been appointed to the top position of the Military and other security agencies nor in the NNPC and elsewhere under the APC-led federal government is exclusionary”.
According to him, this represents an insult and affront to the Igbo and what we represent as a group.
The youth group described the zoning of the deputy speakership slot by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the South/East, as embarrassing and insult to the zone.
He said: “In the history of Nigeria, the Igbo have never been consigned nor relegated to irrelevance as is being done now, and it beats our imagination that some faceless group will accept this for pecuniary gains”.
He said: “COSEYL has standards, and has continued to pursue these in line with justice and inclusion as they may have to do with the South East in the Nigerian political landscape, and will therefore not join issues with some faceless dissemblers who are mostly uninitiated of history operating in opaqueness”.
He reminds the group and their supporters that the Igbo are and have always remained larger than the number six or seven position if it comes to sharing of spoils – regarding offices.
According to him population nor spread did not make them adding that nothing makes that permutation workable in the scale of justice adding that for more than many ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, the Igbo are a homogenous group occupying a geopolitical zone (the entire South East) spanning other regions and should be given priority along this line.
He recalled that nine years after the civil war, an Igbo son, Dr Alex Ekwueme, was elected as Vice President under the NPN. In 1999, upon the return to democracy in the current republic (Fourth Republic), the Igbo were awarded the third position as a senate president and have continued to hold offices like that of the army chief, manning the economy and finance of the nation until the current APC government.
He said: “Of what significance is the post of the Deputy Speaker to one of the most populous ethnic nationalities in Nigeria whose contribution to the nation’s independence, liberation and even emergence is not in doubt”.
The Youth body called on all well-meaning Igbo to join their voice in the campaign for the leadership of the Tenth Assembly insisting that the position of the Senate President should be zoned to South East.
They urged all Senators to support them to achieve this ambition at the Tenth Assembly; it is not beyond the Igbo, and it is not too much to ask for because as a region the South East has continued to get little after giving much.
He said: “We make bold to state that this faceless and fake Ohanaeze Youth group does not and can never represent the South East agenda because of their parochial goal to support Hon. Benjamin Kalu”.
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