By: Dele Ikeorha
I read in the 28th August edition of Guardian Newspapers the interview of Senator Alex Usman Kadiri, an APC stalwart, who represented Kogi East from 1999 to 2003. The interview with JOHN AKUBO, purported to examine the challenges facing the quest for Igbo presidency unlikely in 2023. The Interview published as Why Igbo Presidency Remains an Uphill Task by Kadiri” contained, provocative, insulting, fallacies, illogicalities, dubious double speak and an intolerable arrogance, which I found objectionable and I am therefore compelled to exercise my right to reply.
Senator Kadiri made a lot of fallacious statements, half truths and downright conjectural lies in the so called Interview, which rather than dignify, should be considered as a strategic is hatchet job to frustrate the legitimate quest for Igbo Presidency by spinning a ritualist logic on its head to undermine an idea whose time has come.
In the very response to the first question, Senator Alex Kadiri shot the first salvo of what has become characteristically, the recurring defence of anti Igbo forces for their intolerable and disgraceful inequitous 50 years political discrimination against Ndígbo in Nigeria.
According to Kadiri “Nobody gives you power. You go in search of it and fight for it, just like late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola did. Abiola had a long-term plan for the presidency.”
One can deduce from this statement a reluctance from the North to relinquish power because they do not subscribe to the doctrine of equity. However as Nigeria today is, the Northerner as President cannot continue under any guise civilian or military (Nigeriaspeak) beyond May 2023. Should they defy political and moral logic to do so, they can only remain in power and rule themselves alone. If they wish to continue the state robbery they perpetuated through dubious military regimes of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, they should get set for the Mali experience.
I opposed military domination then and many are waiting for the North to employ the same dubious tactic which is archaic and can convince no one in the 21st century where we are all crying for not only good governance but also for equitab leadership.
The protest today in Enugu that shut down the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, of citizens protesting the massacre and genocidal killings of Enugu youths who were in a peaceful social meeting, but were brutally and callously gun down and later accused of being IPOB members without proof is a case in point of the rising temper against Nigeria and the Nigerian government in the South East for the neglect, discriminations and other dehumanities, and should serve as a warning that with things as they are evolving, deep rooted disaffection is brewing against the way Nigeria is being governed, and the recklessness of the state, arrogance and brutality of its operators, and abuse of power infrastructure through the subjection of the people to jackbootism. This can only bring about civil disobedience which at its height, mobilising the army would result in further civil disobedience.
The South East people’s have one message for a government that betrays our oneness by its pariah treatment of the South East as not a part of Nigeria. The Enugu protest can be summarises in one statement.
We are no longer afraid. We are outraged. We can no longer tolerate these systemic injustices and oppressive discrimination against the South East. We can no more tolerate our dehumanization.
Senator Kadiri is ignorant of what it means to be a Nigerian. As at today, Nigerians from all parts of the country are asking what being a Nigerian is, and why and of what relevance Nigeria has to their lives except as a geographical expression that has not shown any sense of responsibility. They are asking, if it is worth it. Nigerians are not getting the benefit of citizenship and even their God given humanity is daily being brutalised by an insensitive and incompetent federal government. The Nigerian concept has been bastardised by President Buhari’s mismanagement of the political and social consciousness through wanton nepotism, arewa centrism, islamisation, and fulanisation agenda, and pro-Islamic appointments, Boko Haramism and lip service to fighting Fulani herdsmen terrorism and banditry, leading Nigeria into an ultra nationalist direction that needs to be cautioned and curtailed. In recent times he has resorted to making South Eastern nominations and appointments that are gallery appointments, as the test to any appointment of Igbo persons is how long they stay in such positions.
They disrupt such leaderships only to turn round to accuse them with dubious incompetence and non-performance claims, as Senator Kadiri made concerning Chuba Ukadigbo and others in his enterview. The Kachukwu issue is still fresh in the minds of the Igbo people that Northerners such as Buhari cannot be trusted, and those they trust like Shehu Yar Adua and Atiku are not trusted by their north Western oligarchs.
Let us deal with the issue of “Nobody gives you power” . It is this evil philosophy that is responsible for the ignoring of the people’s right to give power, and the preponderance in electoral manipulations and rigging in recent times. President Bihari is not in power today because the North forcefully seized power. Or because the North voted for him and Ndígbo did not. No. He is in power because there was case for power shift in 2015.
By 2023, despite the campaign to legitimise power remaining in the hand of a northerner, not even a military coup can long retain power in the hand of a northerner beyond Buhari,nọr will a contrived state of emergency work to assuage the rising distrust and view of greed for power with which many view the North, especially the Northwest. The cost of that madness (of attempting to stay in Presidential power beyond 2023 May under any guise) would be national implosion.
Kadiri’s logic which many northern politicians reecho is that Abiola planned for Presidency, that Abiola “If you were a friend of Abiola living in Kano or Sokoto, Abiola would fly there if you have a naming ceremony, in spite of the inconveniences and the bad weather or he will send a ram for the naming ceremony. He formed a football club, Abiola Babes, and was basically funding Nigeria Football Association (NFA).
So, his name was being sung among all the players throughout the country, through acts of philanthropy, through acts of employment. He was giving people money to establish their own businesses. He didn’t care if you were Yoruba from Egba or Yoruba from Ekiti or Fulani from Sokoto; he patronised most people in the country”
What is good for the goose is good for the gender. No northerner followed the approach to power they are preaching and raising as strategy ante. Did Buhari or Yar Adua do the same thing? Were potential northern presidential material like Buhari attending burial parties of southerners who are their friends, which should be a given because that is one of the responsibility of friendship.
But taking Kadiri in his own prescript. Were they (Nigerian Presidents from the North, Shagari, Buhari, Yar’Adua) giving southerners money for business? Did they patronise southerners not caring where they came from? Even as at today disgracefully, southerners are employed on contract basis in Northern Nigeria, a policy put in place in the 1950s. Preference is to employing or buying from foreigners than from southerners.
Please Senator Kadiri should keep the hypocrisy which had permeated behaviour of northern politicians especially those from the North West, before it permeated everything.
The so called northern politicians, how many are broad minded enough to have friends in the south or even in the North central? Northerners don’t make friends with southerners in Nigeria. The few like Shehu Musa Yar Adua are considered as betrayers by their northern brothers. I have lived over 30 years in the North. For example, Orji Uzor Kalu and Rochas, visible Igbo politicians who earnestly sought friends in the north, how many northerners spoke out or visited them when they were being politically victimised? A d who were those masterminding their victimisation? What happened to Chuba Okadigbo in Kano? And who is politically victimising them? I have said this again and again. While those from the south seek political and social friendship with northerners, the cultural reaction is against it. While we have campaigned and worked for handshake across the Niger, across river Kaduna, It has been difficult if not impossible because they are not interested in building such bridges. Show me a man or woman apart from Shehu Yar Adua, one northern politician who has a friend, a true friend in the south? show me one who everyone knows is his friend? So this kind of hypocrisy should not be tolerated. Southerners are reaching out and northerners are shrinking from such friendships.
This has resulted in a saying among southerners that you don’t beg for friendship. So if the northern political class want southern political friends, they should change their attitude and arrogance. It is no longer acceptable. I must also state that even in the North, indigenes of the north who are Christian’s are marginalised and discriminated against. Friendships in the north are measured on religious ground. Are you a Muslim? Are you Fulani or Hausa? If these are the basis of friendship, it is no wonder majority of southerners who are predominantly Christian find it difficult to make friends in the Muslim North who perpetually discriminate on the basis of tribes and religion and have saddled Nigeria with an unworkable nationalism. And those who have friends among northern Christians, find out that they are even better than they. It is no wonder the APC is a coming together of the Muslim North West and the Muslim South West. Yet this notwithstanding, the South West are shortchanged in the conspiratorial political arrangements because of their tribe, hence Osinbajo who has shown himself a credible and competent a ring president when necessary is given the short stick. It is no wonder, Bola Tinu u who arguably is the architect of the APC coalition is ridiculed and given the end of the stick at every turn while he waits for his pound of flesh.
Contrary to Kadiri’s proselytizing, the fact remains that at no time did Buhari or any northern politician go about sharing money to southerners the way they said Abiola did, and the betrayal of Abiola by his so called northern friends has sent a message to others that it is not worth it. Hired friendship is call for disaster. Abiola despite winning an election was frustrated from being President by whom? Is that what true friends do? No southerner is ready to repeat the Abiola mistake or methodology, not only because money by southern. businessmen are hard earned, the political returns, if Abiola is to be used as example, are not encouraging.
Senator Kadiri said “whether the presidency goes to Igbo, in the south or the Ijaw, who is also in the south, or the Bini, who are also in the south, only God knows. I hate this idea of people saying the presidency is now for one man. I was surprised that a man like Okwesilieze Nwodo, former chairman of a party like the PDP, was saying that if they don’t give the Igbo people the presidency, he would ask Igbo to go and join Nnamdi Kanu in IPOB. That is almost a treasonable statement.”
Of course God knows if presidential power will go or not to the Igbo or South east. However, I find it hard to reconcile Kadiri’s remark about nobody giving away power enthusiastically with his God knows concept. The God knows concept is a political convenience tool to legitimise many evil years of coups and forceful power takeover by northern military political class in Nigeria, during which time they destroyed what it meant to be Nigerian.
Kadiri said he hates the idea that the Presidency is now for one man. Whatever he means by that. The Presidency is contested by one man. Although it is an institution, it is remembered in history and political fact as one man, hence we talk about the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency, the Yar’Adua Presidency, the Buhari failed Presidency etc.
Senator Kadiri is surprised at H.E. Okwesilieze Nwodo’s statement and I quote:
“I agree with Nnamdi Kanu in everything he says about the marginalisation of the Igbos. He, more than any other person has put it on the international map. If Nigeria tells the elites from South East that they would be treated as second class citizens in Nigeria, and that they can never be president, almost all of them will go with Kanu to fight for Biafra. Anybody who wants to be a second-class citizen can support whoever he wants. Any Igbo man who wants to bequeath secured future for himself and generation yet unborn should support this call for Igbo presidency. In the spirit of fairness and equity, Nigeria should give the presidency to South East in 2023, otherwise, we will join him and fight for Biafra.”
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“So, in Southern Nigeria, it would be a total disaster if we do not produce the next president because we have been terribly marginalised since the end of the civil war. For 50 years now, we have been persecuted for having fought for freedom. When will this marginalisation stop? Anybody who loves Nigeria and who wishes Nigeria well should go for Igbo Presidency in 2023 for unity, fairness, equity and for Nigeria to move forward.” he said
Nwodo was only stating the obvious however we wish to deny or wish it was not so if to wish it away. He put in apt words, what has become the trend of thought of many in and from the South East. I have been saying same for a long time as a warning. Ndígbo want a better country. They believe they deserve a better country, and if Nigeria cannot be that country, why not Biafra. The two options before Ndígbo is either support for 2023 Nigerian Presidency or Biafra. We can no longer hide like the ostrich. Saying it is almost treasonable according to Senator Kadiri is meaningless. Treason is reason with a T and sometimes T means truth, or that is when reason is turned on its head, it breeds treason. Infact history bears me witness, I would rather commit reason, than allow myself to be dehumanised. The dehumanization of Ndígbo is pushing the South East towards the unthinkable, and those who are fanning the embers like the immoral use of the Nigerian army against the people of South East should warn and caution themselves. There is so far oppression can go.
I don’t care about what he calls treason if the plot is to dehumanise me or my people and render me a slavish society. It is the right of every man to resist attempt to dehumanise, brutalise or annihilate his existence. We have a right to protest and to resist, even by the poor standards of Nigeria’s dubious constitution.
Ndígbo and indeed other parts of Nigeria, are at this moment seriously considering pulling out of Nigeria. That is not speculating, it is not politics; that is national right. 2023 Presidency is the last straw to prevent it, and how that presidency is supported will play a part. If there is a repeat of the mockery we experienced in the Senate with 5 Senate presidency in 8 years, it is bye bye to Nigeria and Biafranism will prevail, even if you move 1 div, 2 div and 3 div to join. the 82 division in Enugu. There is no force that can stop an idea whose time has come. Igbos are seriously aggrieved about how they are treated in Nigeria, almost to the point they no more care about another civil war. The earlier this is taken seriously, the better for all of us. Ndígbo right now can no more tolerate further marginalisation and discrimination. We believe we deserve better and want better, if not in Nigeria, in Biafra. The recent appointments and nominations of Igbo citizens by Buhari such as Okonjo Iweala for the World Trade Organisation are done in bad faith and with the same insincerity and Machiavellian scheming mentality that has made Ndígbo to get to where we are today. We may pretend we don’t see it, but that does not mean we don’t see it. They are done to prevent or limit the options of a legitimate Igbo Presidency, and it will woefully fail.
Senator Kadiri stated that “I believe in. Any Igbo man who wants to be the president of Nigeria must come out and work for it.” The statement is true,but what does he mean by work for it? Did Buhari work for it? Did the North West work for it?
Nwodo in his interview stated that “there has never been a time when any region produced a consensus candidate, everybody emerged through primary elections. The last election was zoned to the north and Atiku Abubakar contested with other aspirants before he emerged PDP’s candidate, so did Buhari contest with other candidates before emerging the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC. There is no zone that has produced a candidate by consensus. It doesn’t matter how many people are interested, they will be subjected to party primaries and the person with highest vote will win.”
According to Senator Kadiri in his banal epistle, “NO Igbo man is going to sit in Umuahia, Enugu or Awka and Nigerians would say, it’s your turn. When will it be the turn of the Bini? As you know, there are the other tribes, very many in this country, who believe that, as I mentioned the Ijaw moments ago, the Tiv, who also want to be president. When will it be the turn of these people? Those of us from the Middle Belt, we are beginning to think that in the schemes of affairs, nobody is thinking of the Middle Belt anymore. Reason being that we are small tribes scattered all over the place; so, nobody thinks of us anymore.”
Did Buhari or Yar Adua and even Shagari not sit in Katsina or Kaduna before they became President? Apart from election campaign ING, did they go lobbying in the South East or South West or South South before they became President? I am ashamed of logical thought like this. Coming from a politician from the North Central it is a disgrace. As a bigrapher of JS Tara, I believe middle Beltane politicians need to reassess their politics just as the South East otherwise…
Senator Kadiri says nobody is thinking about the middle velt anymore. why so, they are not even shouting like the South East is doing. According to his own prescription, they are not doingwhat Abiola did, making friends with north westerners, ping to burial ceremonies, etc. The emancipation of the middle belt lies in a return to the alliance it had with the South East and it’s romance with the north west has not yeilded anything. JS Tarka who formed the National Party of Nigeria NPN did not get a better treatment than Alex Ekwueme who founded the PDP. There is a crisis of political partnership in the north between the North Central and the north west. Until the South East gets political justice, Nigeian minorities will not. The Gbagyis for example who are Nigeria’s fourth largest tribe are brutally marginalised in Nigeria and we claim they are northerners. We see what is going on in today’s Kaduna South and a Nigerian President from the North is not just incompetent to handle it just as Boko Haram terrorists are treated with kid gloves and given easy passage into the Nigerian army and it’s victims can’t even see let alone fill forms for recruitment into the army, no wonder everywhere in Nigeria, we question our nationality.
Senator Alex Kadiri in his pontification asserted that “Igbo man is the greatest enemy of himself.” When asked why by the interviewer, his reply was a disappointing one:
“They are very, very disorganised. Atiku Abubakar picked Peter Obi, as his running mate at the last election. Do you know that Peter Obi could not harvest votes from Igbo land to help Atiku win the presidency? The complaints about Peter Obi in the Southeast were very vociferous, maybe because the other people made a promise; they were promised that the next president of Nigeria would be an Igbo man.
I don’t know what powers the president has to appoint somebody else from the Southeast without persons from the Southeast fighting for this position. When Ndigbo in the north visited President Ibrahim Babangida, he said the Igbo were in every nook and cranny of Nigeria. They should use their presence in every village to network for votes, in addition to the quest for money in those places. What Abiola used his own personal wealth to do, the Igbo, who are scattered all over Nigeria, can do it effortlessly, if they really mean well for themselves, but they’re not doing this.”
What could be responsible for this?
Well, I don’t know. I’ve tried to look at it but I cannot understand it. My wife is Igbo. So, I have nothing against Igbo people; the fact of the matter is, they don’t mean well for themselves. Their republican, unrealistic approach to issues is not helping them. And, in a complex country like Nigeria, you need to network. Do not wait until the month or the week of the year of the election before you start making friends, hoping to be nominated. Before you can become a presidential candidate, a party must field you.”
Only a quisling will set an examination for himself, copy from a textbook and score himself high.
Certain statements are made without situating them in our historic experience. We all know what happened in the 2015 elections. Igbos were deprived of their Permanent Voters Card or PVCs. Registration for PVC was made difficult if not impossible for them, and those who successfully registered went through hell in attempt to get their PVC. Millions ended in failure. I remembered on my part I threatened to take INEC to court when they claimed they will burn what they called Unclaimed PVCs. I wrote to embassies of the United Kingdom, the European Union, France, United States, United Nations to complain over the attempt to rig the 2015 elections by distributing the so called Unclaimed but rather undistributed PVCs to illegal immigrants from the Sahel region including Niger Republic, Mali, Senegal,.Gambia, etc. INEC in response to my protest rescinded its dubious plan claiming the Ondo State Resident Electoral Commissioner then made the remark on his own, that it was not the policy of the national body. However, up till today, despite claim that over 80% PVC were distributed in the South East, the reality is about 30% PVC distribution. Perhaps that is one of the methods Kadiri was alluding to, manipulating political processes.
This conspiracy has continued unabated. We have four years between one election and the other. During this period, people should have been able to collect their Permanent Voters Cards as a matter of routine and without additional cost and conviniently so. but this is not so. PVC Collection and distribution is banned only for INEC to before every election for pecuniary reasons and looting purposes, to start distributing PVCs weeks before every election. Not only is this inefficient, it is ineffective for our democracy. It perpetuated the controlled agenda to manipulate political processes in Nigeria. I hope my friend Festus Okoye would bring his years of activism to bear and affect the needed change in INEC in this area.
Kadiri’s remark that the Igbos are their own greatest enemy is part of the stereotypical baseless claims that lack evidence. Democracy is a pluralistic system. It allows for those interested in a position to join the fray and contest under a platform provided they belong to a platform and pass through the process. Senator Kadiri has a problem with the democratic selection process which is over .
When multiple northerners come out and contest against themselves as we witnesses in both the PDP and APC and previously in ANPP before, it is not construed as enmity against themselves as Northerners. But when it happens in igboland which is very rare as we have never had the chance, they start shouting they are not United. The same northerners, especially north west Muslim politicians we could be the one canvassing to multiple potential candidates only to come out later to scandalise them. This hypocrisy and political subturfuge should end We can no longer be deceived. We can now see through the looking glass. Buhari contested with multiple candidate from the North including Seraki, Atiku, Kwankwaso etc in 2011, and in 2015 the incubency factor took over. In the PDP Atiku emerged after a hot contest including Tanimu Turaki, Tambuwal, Atiku Himself and a host of others. This is politics and democratic politics, and you will never hear southerners say Northerners are not United or are there own greatest enemy because they recognise this is the essence of democratic politics and it would be unreasonable to say otherwise. Senator Kadiri’s remark is unreasonable and his claim that Igbos don’t mean well for themselves while appearing to legitimise his attrocious remark by saying he is married to an Igbo is anything but to be accepted with care as a rattlesnake. And he claims he has nothing against the Igbo people. His entire interview is a diatribe, a litany of his againstness with the Igbo people, married to an Igbo Woman or not he may be nothwithstanding. Those who are not for us are against us and they should not assault our intelligence by window-shopping or photoshopping their hypocrisy.
He now we tangential in his argument to fabricate something contrary to what is in the public domain to stuff it down our throats. He said, “They are very, very disorganised. Atiku Abubakar picked Peter Obi, as his running mate at the last election. Do you know that Peter Obi could not harvest votes from Igbo land to help Atiku win the presidency”
While the claim of Igbo disorganisation is a ruse and a wrong characterisation, as there is no evidence of it, only an evil propaganda promoting it, contrary to Kadiri’s false claim, the facts is that In the 2015 elections, Igbos voted overwhelmingly for Atiku Obi. The overall voter turnout nationwide was placed at 43.63%. In the South East voter turnout was poorer because of actual poor PVC distribution. This notwithstanding, in the South East states of Abịa, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, the Atiku-Obi ticket got 2,464,886 got out of 2,815,348 votes cast; a support ratio of 87.6% to the Atiku-Obi ticket.
For the sake of peace and not to strengthen wrong stereotypes in Nigeria, I wish to call on those peddling this kind of propaganda to stop lying with statistics and stop making baseless and unfactual statements like Senator Kadiri has regretfully done while beating his chest that he has done justice, when all he has succeeded in doing is to murder sleep and disquite a nation already brutalised by misgovernance and misinformation with a distortion of history.
Support for the Atiku Obi ticket did not end in the South East. Ndígbo, who constitute 40% of Lagos population and voting strength, defied threats and intimidation and overwhelmingly contributed to the 632,327 votes of the PDP ticket. In Delta as well as in Rivers State especially and across Nigeria, the Ndígbo in diaspora including in Kano, Kaduna and throughout Nigeria, voted as much as they could for the ticket. But just as the false Nigerian population has ensured, the skewed voter registration did its job.
Democracy has existed since it was founded in 507 BC by Cleisthenes, the ancient father of democracy. Igbo people are highly democratic and will not tolerate the deudalist ideology Senator Kadiri wish to impose or foist on our subconsciousness.
Senator Kadiri also ranted his like for Ismail a Funtua’s comment which I do not feel to dignify with a quote here. Kadiri said “Like Ismaila funtua said in that interview, a party will field the candidates it believes may win the election. Not just field Alex Kadiri, because I talk too much. How many people will vote for me? It will field somebody who can win votes from Sokoto, votes from Borno, votes from Rivers, votes from Akwa Ibom, votes from Ogun, and so on and so forth. That’s the only way. How many Igbo politicians have that kind of spread right now? They are running back into their enclave, chanting that on the presidency, 2023 is for the Igbo man. That’s wishful thinking. I can’t see them with any strength in APC. I can’t see them with any strength PDP. All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has been boxed into Anambra State.”
When Shagari, Atiku, even Buhari were fielded what was the process that led to their victory? This kind of arrogance is intolerable. Shagari was an unknown quantity in1978 despite being a federal commissioner. Politics is about engagement. If the north do not stop their adversarial politics now, they would not have opportunity to practice it beyond 2023 because they would be on their own. Even the South West, their perpetual partner in turn by turn Ltd, are losing faith in them as they want a better more equitable arrangement that is less disruptive and more predictable.
Kadiri cannot see Ndígbo with the kind of spread and personality because he is not looking. Former governor’s, ministers, Senate presidents who are Igbo Are in APC, if they are sincere they will make accommodation. The problem is there is a lack of accommodation of Igbo Politicians.
After the 2015 elections, I made a prediction that played out in the open, that Rochas Okorocha’s senatorial election result would be withheld and released only after the leadership of the Senate has been determined because APC has an Islamic agenda and it would be difficult to countenance Richas or Orji Uzor Kalu who will claim the Senate Presidency or Vice as the slot for the South East. True to prediction, Rochas result were only released as elected after it was impossible for him to contest the Senate leadership, and today, we have the worst religiously skewed leadership of the national assembly in history.
Senator Kadiri rubbishes every possible Igbo candidate forgetting that it was Funny that sold Buhari to the South and to Nigeria. According to him Ndígbo has no Kandi date for President. They should continue to insult us. The current president, what is his credentials? Shagari, Yar’Adua, What were their qualities? Northern politicians should repent and accommodate Igbo Politicians the way we accommodate them. Yar Adua was from the North. Igbo voted overwhelmingly for him. Not because he was better than all Igbos, or even all northerners,but because he was the one the political dynamics threw up. Alex Ekwueme had all the qualities they are claiming they are looking for which none of the former presidents from the North possessed. This double standards in unacceptable and must be called out.
Hear Kadiri, “Any Igbo man who wants to be president of Nigeria, including Orji Uzor Kalu, Rochas Okorocha, even Arthur Eze, or Ifeanyi Uba, all of them cannot sell themselves even in the states where they reside. They can’t.” The question is, if they can’t sell themselves, should the north who sold Obasanjo to us just as the South West through Obasanjo and Bola Tinubu sold Yar Adua and Buhari to us? The North should reciprocate the good gesture of Ndígbo. What many don’t know or trivialise in that in 2023 the mother of all resistance will take place in Nigeria if the North retain power as they are scheming to, hiding under propaganda and false logics in a bid to retain power.
Let it be stayed in black and white, by 2023 power MUST shift to the South and preferably to the South East. Anything short will lad to the requiem of Nigeria. The South West are already preparing for such eventuality because they know the North West using north as a smokescreen, are seeking to retain power in 2023 and are he’ll bent against it, Muslim or Christian.
It is clear by Senator Kadiri’s own confession that he can’t see. And he wants to impose on us his visionlessness.
According to him,
So there are a lot of problems. They have to go back home to sort themselves out first. The ones that have good names and credibility outside have no political tripod on which to stand like I just mentioned. That is the problem. So, to say that the Igbo man must become president: who is this Igbo man that will become president and under which political party? So where does that leave the Igbo man in the 2023 presidential quest?
I can’t see the way through. You tell me how.”
Well, they better look closely. If they want capacity, Igbos have a preponderance of them. But if they hold on to their anti Ndígbo prejudices, nobody should cry wolf when the Biafran cry starts risen higher than their fake logics. Then some of us would use their own words to defend the outcome. The best for us all is to support an Igbo Presidency. The potential candidates are many from Women like Okonjo Iweala, Oby Ezekwesili, to men like Peter Obi, Chris N’gige, Orji Uzor Kalu, Rochas Okoricha, Pius Anyim Pius, Ken Nnamani, Emeka Ihedioha, Ike Ekwerenmadu, Chukwuma Soludo, and a host of others. If they claim they are blind and that Ndígbo has no Candidate as Senator Kadiri wants us to believe, then good riddance to bad rubbish: To hell with Nigeria!