Why the South East should have 2023

Regrettably, our dear country Nigeria is still facing challenges of national unity, integration and development. These challenges are borne out of the fact that the structure of the country and mode of governance have remained too dysfunctional, forcing most indices of development to stubbornly persist on the negative side. The other side of the same […]

Regrettably, our dear country Nigeria is still facing challenges of national unity, integration and development. These challenges are borne out of the fact that the structure of the country and mode of governance have remained too dysfunctional, forcing most indices of development to stubbornly persist on the negative side.

The other side of the same coin is the knotty issue of presidential power in Nigeria. When the nation returned to democratic governance in 1999, a convention was struck on rotation of power between the North and South and between their zones.

This has led to the production of two Presidents from the North West of the country and one from the South West and one from South South, leaving out the South East and the North East in the equation.

Our group recalls that President Muhammadu Buhari, in his maiden media chat, challenged the South East people to organise and assert their rights within an indivisible, indissoluble Nigeria. We also note that the five states in the South East will not make anyone from there Nigerian President. In fact, the Constitution requires a spread of at least 25 per cent in at least 24 states of the federation to produce a president.

Our group plans to move round the country to engage other zones and to lobby and convince them on the inherent benefits of Nigeria President of Igbo extraction.

We wish to dispel the notion that the 1966 military coup was an Igbo coup. No ethnic group  carries out a coup against a government in which they enjoy commanding heights and primacy of place; or botch a coup which they organised to enthrone their own hegemony as Generals JTU Aguiyi -Ironsi and Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu did to stop that first military porsche.

Ndigbo have been grievously accused in this regard and even more grievously have they borne this burden of fallacious history. To us, therefore, it is high time we set that record straight for the sake of posterity and for the sake of generations of Nigerians, who have been fed this lie for decades. Together, let us build the Nigeria of our dream without leaving any section of the country behind.

 

Dr. Law Mefor, Igbo Leadership Development Foundation