From Maurice Okafor, Enugu
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural body, has set up a National Action Committee to actualise a Nigerian president of South-East extraction in next year’s general election.
The body is chaired by the President-General of the body, Prof George Obiozor, and Secretary-General, Amb. Okey Emuchay, as secretary.
The committee is expected to put into work skills of persuasion in reaching out to key political actors, including other critical stakeholders and leaders across the country.
These were part of the communique of the National Executive Committee (NEC) it issued in Enugu on Wednesday night.
According to Prof. Obiozor, they would soon announce the composition of the “Persuasion Team that would recognize those that are critical in Nigeria, including our own people.
“They will also talk to our people here that are aspiring for the presidency.
“The team is nonpartisan and none political. We will try to reach everybody on the need for the South-East to produce the next president.”
He described the President of South-East origin as an idea whose time has come, reminding Nigerians that at about 62 years, the country needed introspective and retrospective thinking in order to re-assess the journey as a nation.
He maintained that Nigeria is facing synchronized national crisis which could lead to its eventual collapse or dismemberment.
He dismissed insinuations that the Igbo were secessionists or separatists, adding that Ndigbo are prepared and deserved the Presidency because it was politically defensible and morally justifiable to deny them this time.
“If the truth must be told, the nation has made two consistent mistakes that have worsened the nation’s problems; leading the nation to near breaking points.
“Those two devils in Nigerian politics are power-sharing and social injustice.
“In all we drifted into these two problems with nonchalance or with ease, and sometimes oblivious of their consequences until what we think is a simple or easy problem develops into a national disaster or catastrophe.
“For those who can remember, how did we get into the western region crisis in the 1960s? How did we get to the civil war (1967-1970)? How did we get to NADECO (Abiola crisis) and even South-South Avengers?
“Today, the situation is not totally different but even more complicated. The way things are, with communication and modern technology, our country is set not only at the usual breaking points which were more easily controlled and contained in the past to preserve Nigerian unity, but a point of synchronized national crisis which will be more difficult to be controlled or contained today.
“Nigeria was a country negotiated and amalgamated under some agreements that balanced sensitive issues of power-sharing and balancing of power regardless of any other conditions.
“It was a system where every person had an equal chance in life regardless of their tribe, race or religion”.
Going down the memory lane, the Ohanaeze boss said: “In 1960 at independence, our Founding Fathers – Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa, joyfully embraced both independence and all existing institutions establishing Nigerian unity.
“Those founding fathers later found out that our country Nigeria, had inherent measures of historic conflict of ideas and ideals.
“Consequently, all Nigerian leaders even today have utilized Nigeria’s ‘Doctrine of creative use of conflicts and crises’.
“This old doctrine can be used once more to save the country and control the present crisis.
“But today in terms of nationalism, only few countries in the world have fallen so fast as Nigeria in recent years. Nigerians must recognize that something went wrong.
“Nigerian nationalism is receding as ethno- regional nationalism is growing astronomically.
“It is time to rebuild and restore Nigerian nationalism and national spirit.
“As the national situation is today, it will require Pan Nigerians like Igbo to reinvigorate the nation’s path to unity.
“And a South-East Igbo president of Nigeria in 2023 will be one of the most critical but positive decisions of the nation’s history because, it is the right decision and an idea whose time has come.
“For those in doubt, please be assured that he/she will focus on what can be done instead of arguing over what is impossible.”
