As we’re entering a new year in less than two weeks, Nigerians are bracing up for politicians to intensify their strategies to outdo and outplay themselves in the build up to the 2023 elections. While 2021 has been a year of declarations and consultations for politicians who are aspiring and pretending for different political seats, 2022 is definitely going to be a year of electioneering campaigns and debates that will consequently determine who becomes what in 2023.
Meanwhile, as it stands, the political platitude gaining momentum in Nigeria’s political discourse is that of a southern cum Igbo presidency taking the highly-coveted seat in Aso-rock.
Boosting the rhetoric of an Igbo presidency in 2023 is the civil unrest and agitation for a sovereign state of Biafra by IPOB that has taken over the South East region. Political analysts are of the opinion that; quenching the call for a sovereign state of Biafra, Igbo presidency in 2023 is the only panacea.
President Muhammadu who will be bowing out of the political corridor in 2023 is from the North, hence, the call for a president from the south seems viable and sensible. However, the Northern elders under the umbrella of Northern Elders Forum(NEF) have vehemently refuted every call for a rotational presidency on the premise that every region is entitled to run for the position and democratic process should take its cause without victimization or intimidation.
Apart from the presidential ambition of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu posing a threat to a president of Igbo extraction in 2023, the Northern Elders Forum standing tall against Ohanaeze Ndigbo’s call for Igbo presidency is another obstacle the Igbo people are clueless about to surmount.
We could see how Bola Tinubu has been confidently and effortlessly securing the support of Northern political leaders and groups, gallivanting in his regalia and signature cap from one northern state to the other, while abandoning the political leaders in the South-West. No Igbo presidential aspirant has shown that kind of South-North relationship since the clamour for an Igbo Presidency began.
What is surprising is that, apart from the IPOB imbroglio which the Igbo people are using to blackmail other ethnic groups to submit the presidency to them on a platter of gold, the Igbo politicians are bereft of idea on how to lobby other regions/ethic groups to support their idea of an Igbo presidency.
If not until recently that Arewa Consultative Forum beseeched the Igbo people to lobby other region to support their Igbo presidency agenda— which served as a greenlight for the South-east—it was obvious that Igbo socio-political group like the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, if not scared of approaching the Northern political deciders for support, they’re are wary of putting a machinery in motion to lobby, out of fear of rejection or embarrassment.
Barely a week ago, there was a verbal scuffle between the apex socio-cultural body in the North, Arewa Consultative Forum(ACF) and Movement for the Actualization Of Sovereign State Of Biafra(MASSOB) over the modus operandi the Igbo people should employ to gain the support of the North in actualizing their Igbo presidency project.
According to the Chairman of ACF, Dr Audu Ogbeh, the body is not a partisan body that will declare support for a candidate but a pressure group. The chairman however noted that the South-East which comprises majorly the Igbo speaking people needs to lobby other geopolitical zones to support their dream of Igbo Presidency.
In a swift reply to that, MASSOB fired back and emphatically said the Igbo people will not beg any region to support their project for Igbo Presidency in 2023.
“Ndigbo are not beggars. It is an abomination that Igbo elders will kneel down for another. Even though the lives of Ndigbo are at risk, we can never beg; rather, we devise our own means of fighting back because Igbos must survive. Ndigbo are not cowards or weaklings.”, Leader of MASSOB, Comrade Uchenna Madu stated.
Meanwhile, in a counter-reaction, according to the ACF Spokesman: “Nobody said they should beg for political power. We only said it is better for the South East politicians to go round the country and hold discussions from their compatriots in order to convince them that it is only fair to allow them have a shot at the presidency.”
Anyways, the cautiousness of the South East is evidently understandable, because, unlike the Southwest political gladiators and the Northern political leaders that have been having a mutual and cordial relationship over the years, the animosity between the North and South East is ominous.
And the animosity is dated as far back as the first coup of 1966 led by “Igbo soldiers” against the northern political leaders and subsequently the only civil war of 1967 that was spearheaded by a northern military hegemony against the Igbos, claiming 3 million lives.
Since that time, suspicion, accusations of marginalization, political victimization, blame game and threat of secession have been the subject matter between the Igbo people and their northern counterparts in the political discourse. The strained relationship between the South-east and the North has snowballed to the level where the Igbos find it hard to approach the North for collaboration or cooperation for their political project.
Apart from the bloody model of gaining power by the military junta since 1966, since Nigeria returned to democratic system of government in 1999, the presidential position has been switching between the North and South-West— save 2009-2015 when Goodluck Jonathan became an ‘accidental president’ after the demise of his boss, Umar Musa Yar’adua.
While the South-east has the oil deposit that has been the major source of revenue for the whole country, the North is forming a “big brother” with their large population. And this population is their strength to swing the presidency to their favour at every given time. Politics is a game of numbers, if the Igbo presidency project is going to come alive, the South-east has no choice but to lobby for the support of the North. This obviously is not going to happen without compromise. A compromise that might bruise the ego of the Igbo people, if tact is not applied.
Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that the apex socio-political organization in the Southeast, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has welcomed the advice of Arewa Consultative Forum on lobbying other zones to support Igbo presidency.
In a telephone interview with Punch newspaper on 10th of December, 2021, the spokesman for the Ohanaeze, Chief Alex Ogbonnia said, “Coming to lobby group, that is good advice and I want to assure them that already the machinery is in motion to make sure that all segments of this country will support the Igbo to produce the president for Nigeria. Because we have been supporting others”
However, as much as the Igbo presidency is a lofty dream of the Southeast, Nigerians of nowadays are not yearning for a regional president, even the North that gave their all to Buhari during the last presidential elections are gnashing their teeth now for that costly mistake. What Nigeria needs now is a competent and charismatic leader who will restore their hope in the Nigerian project. And if the Southeast is serious about Igbo presidency, they shouldn’t lobby for the position alone, they should also present the best of their best that is visionary, marketable and believable, speak with one voice and support the candidate against all odds. That’s the way to go!
An Igbo presidency shouldn’t just be a rhetoric or a source of consolation to a region, it should be the panacea to the myriad of challenges that bedevilled the country. Nigerians are tired of all the religious and ethnic shenanigans that always characterize our political discourse every election year.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” —Proverbs 29:18
