How Igbo Can Become President Of Nigeria

The question as to whether the core North is willing to support the emergence of an Igbo man as president of Nigeria in 2023 has again came to the fore.

Speaking to newsmen on Thursday, chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF Chief Audu Ogbeh urged the Igbo to lobby for the office rather than adopting the policy of confrontation or entitlement for the highest office in the land.

Given the fact that Ogbeh comes from the Middle Belt, a region that is itself in political revolt against the core North, it is questionable if he in reality had the authority of the core North to project the prospect of an Igbo president of Nigeria in 2023.

That assertion is against the seeming confession by some of the leading Igbo in the political space of the impossibility of that.

One of the most prominent political actors in the country recently told your correspondent that the prospect of such was not realizable in the immediate future.

That claim is upon the insinuation that some in the core North are still wrapped in the civil war mentality that has led to continued assault on the Igbo.

Exemplary of this argument is the reality that no Igbo person in the present dispensation has been entrusted with any commanding position of any of the armed or paramilitary services.

Given the decisive role that President Muhammadu Buhari is likely to play in the transition, one question that is often asked is whether a man who has not trusted an Igbo man with the Commandant of the National Security and Civil Defence Corps  would entrust the office of Commander-in-Chief to such?

Indeed, until not too long ago, nearly the majority of the Igbo political elite were resigned to the fate of playing second fiddle. While the likes of Osita Okechukwu then and now continued to clamour for a president of Igbo descent, the potential presidential aspirants shied away.

The Anambra governorship election had been envisaged as a potential political catalyst by the likes of Okechukwu and others in the All Progressives Congress, APC to present the region as sufficiently friendly to the party to be entrusted with its presidential ticket.

The outcome of the Anambra election has itself sufficiently emboldened those in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP that the APC remains unpopular in the region. For such, the only option to the presidency stands outside the APC.

Among those who have been so convinced from the region and have now entered the fray are Senator Anyim Pius Anyim and Pharm Sam Ohabunwa. They are about the two most recognizable names from the Southeast to have so far indicated interest.

The intentions of Mr. Peter Obi remain fuzzy especially given the hostility to him among the political class in Anambra. Though loved and adored by the political class outside Anambra, it is a different kettle of fish for him among the political elite in his state.

Mr. Obi is almost universally blamed by PDP chieftains of denying the party the opportunity of winning the governorship last November which was to them, the best opportunity the party had since it was forced out in 2006.

Now and again, here and there, posters of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu surface but no one has taken that seriously, despite the fact that Kalu as Senate Chief Whip is the highest Igbo voice in the Federal Government.

So, given the glimmer of hope coming from Mr. Ogbeh to the Southeast, Igbo political stakeholders in the PDP and APC should begin to package themselves for a possible contest in the near future.

Unfortunately, with the notable exception of Kalu, virtually all other Igbo possible aspirants in the APC are dwelling below the radar. Even Chibuke Amaechi who is ready to flaunt his Igbo identity has remained under the radar waiting on Buhari.

Governor Dave Umahi who made it a passion to antagonize the PDP to zone the presidency to the Southeast while he was in that party has surprisingly kept mute on the issue in the APC.

Some also talk of Mr. Emeka Nwajiuba, the minister of state for education as a possible APC candidate.

The gist about Nwajiuba flows from the fact that besides being intelligent some have alluded to his political fidelity to Buhari having soldiered with him from the ANPP to the CPC and now to the APC. The former member of the House of Representatives just like Anyim, has a network among former members of the House of Representatives across the country that he could count on to facilitate his aspiration should he enter the fray.

While nearly everyone says that a Southeast president of Nigeria would reset the economic dynamics of the country and set the nation on a path of growth, that possibility remains as murky as ever.

It has been reported that before he died, that President Shehu Shagari revealed to some that his overthrow in 1983 by the Muhammadu Buhari junta was mainly aimed to stop Alex Ekwueme from becoming president in 1987.

In 2023 it would be exactly 40 years that that alleged plot was executed. With Buhari now in a good position to determine his successor, the eyes of history would be looking on him as he navigates the options before him.

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