From Maurice Okafor, Enugu.
The former National chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance [APGA] and the immediate past senator of Anambra Central senatorial district, Senator Victor Umeh, has joined the clarion call for the next President of Nigeria in 2023 to be of Igbo extraction.
Senator Umeh asserted that a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction in 2023 is the best way to heal the wounds in Nigeria, and if scuttled will mean postponing the nation’s doomsday. .
The former APGA national chairman stated in a chat with a select group of Journalists during the final rites accorded to Late Justice Ezebuilo Ozobu, the first Ohanaeze President General of the Ohanaeze at the national secretariat, GRA, Enugu
While he acknowledged late Justice Ozobu, as one of the pacesetters in the Igbo struggle against marginalization, who is supposed to be immortalized with physical structures, he maintained that 2023 is the ripe time for an Igbo man to preside over the affairs of Nigeria..
He stressed that it will be very unfair for Ndigbo to be denied the opportunity to produce the president of the country in 2023, arguing that there are quite a lot of experienced political figures from the South East zone, who are ably qualified and capable to rule Nigeria from 2023, noting that only an Igbo man as president will unite and turn around the fortunes of Nigeria for better.
His words, ‘So presidency of Nigeria cannot continue to be denied the Igbo. One is that we are capable, we are qualified and we have men that can turn the fortunes of Nigeria round for the better. We have the education; we have the versatility and the competence. We can offer Nigeria a good President that will be better for other parts of Nigeria more than the Igbo part of Nigeria, because we always think about perfection and how to do things in the best interest of all. This is because we live everywhere. It is only when an Igbo man becomes President, that this country can truly be united’.
Continuing, Umeh noted, “If we continue to play politics the way we are playing it today, we are postponing the doomsday for Nigeria. The best way to heal the wounds in Nigeria is by giving an Igbo man a chance to become President. So I am pleading with the rest of the country, not with arrogance, to try a President from Igbo land for Nigeria. Let them test it and see, because I know that our people have excelled all over the world; in all spheres of education and endeavor. Why can’t Nigeria try a person from this part of Nigeria to lead Nigeria, so that we will compare.” He queried
