MIKE UBANI
Some prominent Igbo leaders who met in Enugu on December 18, 2012,
under the umbrella of Igbo Political Forum, had one common objective -
to produce a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2015. And before
the Enugu summit, some pressure groups in the South-East geo-political
zone, including Committee - 21 and Nzuko Igbo, had sent strong signals
to President Goodluck Jonathan, that his tenancy at Aso Rock, the
president’s official residence, would expire on May 29, 2015 – and his
seat taken over by an Igbo.
Though it is yet unclear whether President Jonathan is harbouring any
ambition to contest the 2015 presidential election, the picture on the
ground in the South-East indicates that if the election holds today, he
would record an abysmal performance in the zone.
This postulation may have little to do with his performance in office
since he was elected president on the platform of the ruling People’s
Democratic Party, PDP, but more on the people’s feeling of political,
and by extension economic marginalization since the country achieved
independence on October 1, 1960.
“Though late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, was one of the country’s foremost
nationalists, and one who championed the country’s independence in 1960,
he ended up being a ceremonial president...Late Major-General Aguiyi
Ironsi, was military head of state for only six months, and since his
brutal death on July 29, 1966, no other Igboman has ruled the country”,
lamented Chijioke Dike, one of the delegates to the Igbo Political Forum
summit.
Incidentally, the continued failure of Ndigbo to produce the
president of the country, formed the fulcrum of discussions at the Enugu
meeting attended by several prominent Igbo politicians, businessmen,
the academia, and youths from the five states that make up the zone.
“We must take a stand today to say the Igbo must produce the next
president of Nigeria come 2015… We are the largest ethnic group in the
country, but regrettably we constitute a minority group in the National
Assembly…” said Chief Austin A. Ibe, national president, National
Congress of Ndigbo Confederation (NCNC).
And after listening to the wake-up call made by Chief Ibe, Barrister
Eric Chukwuemeka Ohagwu, from Ideato South Local Government Area of Abia
state, moved a motion that the Igbo nation must produce the next
president of Nigeria in 2015.
The motion which was unanimously adopted by the delegates was
seconded by Chief Ibe. He also moved a second motion that the newly
registered United Progressives Party, UPP, should be used as a vehicle
to achieve the quest of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in
2015. Again, the motion was overwhelmingly adopted.
Chief Chekwas Okorie, national chairman of UPP, who also attended the
function, was visibly excited that the Igbo nation has once again given
him an opportunity to lead the crusade for the actualization of the
quest of a Nigerian president from the South-East Zone. When he founded
the crisis-ridden All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in 2002, his
vision was to use the political party as a vehicle to produce a Nigerian
president from Igboland.
It was against this background that he approached late Dim
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, leader of the defunct Biafra; a courageous
ex-military officer and charismatic politician, to fly APGA’s
presidential flag in 2003. Though the party lost the race which was
described by both domestic and international observers as largely
flawed, it nevertheless, gave the party whose traditional home is
Igboland, hope of wearing the presidential crown in 2007.
But that was not to be following the leadership crisis that literally
turned the party into a living corpse. Not a few say that the party has
finally been buried following the death of Ojukwu on November 26, 2011,
and the lingering altercation between its embattled national Chairman,
Chief Victor Umeh, and the governor of Anambra state, Mr. Peter Obi, who
rode to power in 2003 on the shoulders of APGA.
It would appear that the choice of UPP as vehicle to realize the Igbo
ambition to produce the next president in 2015, was borne out of the
realization that it would be difficult if not impossible for the ruling
PDP to give a presidential ticket to an Igbo. Though Dr. Alex Ekwueme,
an Igbo, and former Nigerian vice president during the Second Republic
(1979 -1983), was a major key player in the efforts leading to the
formation of the PDP, the then military cabal preferred Obasanjo to
Ekwueme as the PDP flag-bearer during the party’s convention held in
Jos, the Plateau state capital in 1998.
And subsequent efforts by leading political lights from Igboland,
including late Dr.Chuba Okadigbo, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, and Dr.
Ogbonnaya Onu, the current national chairman of All Nigeria People’s
Party, ANPP to clinch their respective parties’ presidential tickets
became mere fantasies after Ekwueme’s failed attempt in 1998 to secure
PDP presidential ticket during the Jos Convention of the party. Their
failures could be explained from the perspective that Igbos in those
political parties did not speak with one voice, and even if they did,
their voices were not loud enough.
But it would appear that the ethnic group has learnt its lesson in a
hard way, and had thus resolved to unite to pursue the elusive president
seat. “We will use the UPP to achieve our quest for a Nigerian
President of Igbo extraction since the PDP will never give an Igbo man a
ticket to contest the presidential election”, said Mr. Uchenna Obasi,
one of the delegates to the Igbo Political Forum.
UPP like APGA has its stronghold in Igboland. And since politics is a
game of number, the argument has always been that the votes from
Igboland alone are clearly not enough to make a UPP candidate the
country’s president in any given election.
But Okorie told LEADERSHIP in an interview that both Igbos living
within and outside Igboland, as well as voters from other ethnic groups
who are sympathetic to the long standing quest of a Nigerian president
of Igbo extraction would vote for the presidential candidate of UPP.
“If you have mobilized Igbo votes in the 19 Northern states, Igbo
votes in the South West, Igbo votes in the South -South and Igbo votes
in the South East, you would have demobilized all those forces that
worked against us.
“I can also tell you that there are many marginalized sections in
this country that do not have a platform to contest election, and they
are looking forward to the UPP platform, so it is not all about an Igbo
affair”, he said.
Not a few say that UPP faces an uphill task in mobilizing a sizeable
number of Igbo electorate to join the party, and ultimately vote for its
presidential candidate. The people pride themselves as republicans,
and if they are sincere, the tendency is for prospective voters to
desist any attempt to rail-road them into voting for any particular
candidate from the zone.
They recalled that though late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s National Council
of Nigeria and Cameroons, NCNC, held sway in the defunct Eastern Region,
his kinsman, Dr. Kingsley Ozuomba Mbadiwe, led a rebellion against him
(Zik). For instance, on June 14, 1958, Mbadiwe then federal minister of
commerce and industry conspired with thirty-one members of NCNC, to
write a petition against Zik, who was then the regional premier and
party president.
They demanded for Zik’s resignation from government and from the
party, for allegedly engaging in anti-party activities. They also
referred to the findings of the Foster-Sutton tribunal against Zik, as
well as blamed him for the failure of the universal free primary
education scheme in the region.
And after the National Executive Committee (NEC), of the NCNC
expelled Mbadiwe and four others including Mr. U. O. Ndem, parliamentary
secretary to Mbadiwe, the insurgents formed a new organization named as
NCNC Reformed Committee. And on August 4, 1958, Mbadiwe announced the
formation of a new party named the Democratic Party of Nigeria and the
Cameroons.
Though the party didn’t overrun the NCNC in the region, yet the
activities of Mbadiwe and his likes, as well as other extraneous factors
outside the region, adversely affected Zik’s ambition to become the
country’s prime minister at independence on October 1, 1960. He ended
up being a ceremonial president.
As Ndigbo makes a case for the country’s president to come from the
zone in 2015, the seed of disunity has once again started to manifest
itself. LEADERSHIP gathered that when the South East Peoples Forum –
another pressure group- campaigning for the emergence of a president of
Igbo extraction in 2015, meets in Owerri, the Imo state capital in the
first quarter of 2013, it may likely adopt APGA as a platform to
pursue its project.
National Chairman of the forum, and former governorship candidate of
APGA in the 2003 general elections, Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu, said the
programme would include the “representation and participation of Igbo
leaders, all major groups and organizations, including elected
officials, the executive as well as judicial and legislative office
holders”.
Chief Okorie – the founding national chairman of APGA, was forced out
of the party, by those he described as intruders, and who never shared
the vision of the party. He later formed the UPP with the sole
objective of providing for the Igbo a political platform to pursue its
quest for a president of Igbo extraction in 2015. This idea gained
fillip on December 18, 2015, when the Igbo Political Forum at its
meeting in Toscana Hotels, Independence Layout, Enugu, endorsed UPP as a
platform to achieve the zone’s objective.
The implication is that there would be a clash of interest between
UPP and APGA, and perhaps other latent pressure groups in the zone on
this particular issue. But the UPP leader assured that Ndigbo would
rally round the party to produce a consensus presidential candidate from
the zone.
“We have the confidence that the miracle of 2015 is UPP, and from
what has happened today, the political equation of Nigeria has changed
for the better. Any calculation without the UPP being factored into it
is not a proper political calculation. Nothing will be the same again”,
he said.
Nevertheless, whatever happens between UPP and APGA, the picture on
the ground in the zone shows that support for President Jonathan – if he
decides to run for a second term – would be negligible. The people cite
infrastructural decay, and lack of new federal establishments in the
area as reasons for losing faith in the administration.
Leadership
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, had little problem convincing
Ndigbo to support his presidential ambition in 2011, but less than
three years to the next general elections, there are clear indications
that the same people would prefer their kinsman to take over from
Jonathan, but in this report, MIKE UBANI, asks whether that is within
the realm of possibility.
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