• Igbo deserve the presidency, not vice, says group
Igbo apex socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, yesterday, commended President Muhammadu Buhari and All Progressives Congress (APC) Northern governors for supporting the Southern presidency, adding it will unify the country.
The group, therefore, backs all the candidates of Igbo extraction, especially Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State and Rotimi Amaechi, believing that one of them would clinch the ticket. Ohanaeze also noted that only an Igbo president would diminish the rising rebellion of the secessionist movement in Eastern Nigeria.
In a statement issued to journalists after a meeting by Ohanaeze Elders Council in Abakaliki, its Secretary, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, said that President Buhari should surprise the world with a choice of an Igbo man, stressing that it will cement the cracks on the walls of the country’s unity. According to him, it would also be a decisive moment for the president to decorate himself with dignity and admiration in the history of Nigeria.
The statement reads: “Ohanaeze Ndigbo has commended the positions of President Buhari and APC Northern governors on their support for Southern presidency, which is the height of nationalism and patriotism for the unification of Nigeria, as well as strengthening the conviction of Nigerians to accept the APC consensus candidate as a Nigerian project.
“The president and APC Northern governors have shown that decision on Southern presidency can assuaged and calm the nerves, respond to the anxieties and scepticism of the South and renew the confidence of Nigerians.”
IN a related development, the executive Secretary of Pan Nigeria Presidency of Igbo Extraction Coalition (PANPIEC), Chuks Ibegbu, at the weekend, insisted that Ndigbo will go for the presidency of Nigeria and will not accept the vice president position in 2023, considering that the South East had held the vice presidency position and not yet the presidency.
Ibegbu stated, in a statement, that anybody or group offering the South East the vice presidency in 2023 would be irritating the region, stressing that Ndigbo is not political slaves in Nigeria.
Ibegbu, who disclosed that there are moves by the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, to pick a Southeasterner as his running mate, also indicated that Ndigbo will, however, go back to the drawing board and ex-ray the outcome of the parties’ primaries and other options.
Source: Guardian.ng
