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‘How Igbo president can emerge in 2019’

There have been suggestions by some Nigerians, including former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, that the Igbos in South-east Nigeria should produce the next Nigerian president. Our correspondents gauge the mood from across the nation.



Shortly after Obasanjo’s proposal for an Igbo presidency in the foreseeable future, a group, the Southeast Youth Vanguard (SEYV), was unequivocal in describing the ex-president’s call as “a mischievous crusade.”
The group’s national coordinator, Jason Njoku, in a statement, said the comment was aimed at causing tension, ill-will and confusion in the country.
The SEYV said the call by the former president would have been seen as an act of a friend, benefactor and statesman if he had dealt well with the Ndigbo when he held the presidency for eight years between 1999 and 2007.
The group said Obasanjo’s insistence on a second term in 2003 at a time when their son, Second Republic vice president, Alex Ekwueme, wanted to get the job, jeopardized the chances of the South-east and other zones in the country.
On his part, the founder of the National Democratic Liberty Party (NDLP), Alhaji Umaru Mohammed Maizabura, said Obasanjo was not sincere on the matter.
“Please we should all forget about what Obasanjo said, he is causing unnecessary tension in the polity,”  Maizabura, who is the national chairman of NDLP and its presidential candidate, said.
“Obasanjo was right to have advocated for an Igbo presidency, they deserve to produce the president but he fully knows that in the interest of peaceful coexistence, there is this arrangement that the North and South would be rotating the presidency after every eight years and so, why is he crying more than the bereaved at this material time?” Maizabura asked.

With this in view, the Nigerian political climate had for over a week or so been beclouded with an intense debate as to the desirability or otherwise, of the call.

Obasanjo, who urged Igbos to contest for the presidency in 2019 when he hosted the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Ogun State chapter at his Abeokuta Hilltop residence on Tuesday, January 27, said he was in support of the return to regional governance, as it would solve the problem of marginalization.

“Irrespective of the thinking of the people ahead of 2019, I personally think that the South-east should have a go at the presidency too,” Obasanjo said.

DAILYTRUST


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