Igbo Elders Consultative Forum, IECF, has insisted that the South East must produce Nigeria’s President come 2023 in the interest of all, for equity, and consideration of the Federal Character.
The Secretary of the Elders Forum, Prof Charles Nwekeaku, delivering a communique reached by the Forum of the Elders commended the Southern Governors Forum’s consistent demand that the 2023 Presidency should be zoned to the South, which is the popular will of a majority of Nigerians.
The communique reads, “Emboldened by the increasing demand and support by credible and patriotic Nigerians for power to shift to the South in 2023, the Igbo Elders Forum hereby encourages visionary, credible and creative presidential materials of South East zone to declare their intention for Presidency and pursue it with every sense of seriousness, vigour and commitment.
“We are very serious about this directive and do not mean those unserious booth leakers, who are angling to be running mates to candidates from other parts of the country, as the Igbos will not take it lightly with any of our sons or daughters who accept to be running mates to any person outside the South East zone in 2023.
“It is either we are allowed to produce the president of this country in 2023 to change the appalling narrative of continued decay, poverty, insecurity, poor governance, corruption and maladministration in Nigeria or out of it. No half measure, as serious sanctions will be visited on any Igbo man or woman that sabotages this noble and patriotic decision of our people to provide for Nigeria a credible, visionary and creative President.
“Legally, morally and strategically, it is the turn of the South East to produce the next president of the country as the other zones have been given the opportunity to serve Nigeria in that capacity. Section 14[3] of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria provides thus:
“‘The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the Federal Character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and [also] to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or anyof its agencies’.
“The above provision implies that the South East should be allowed to occupy any political positions at any point in time.”
The Chairman of the IECF, Former Governor of Anambra state and Chairman of the IECF, Dr Chukwuemeka Ezeife, thanked young men and women of Nigeria, from the South and North, who have shown signs of repairing the country, while blaming the older politicians with a dead conscience for championing argument about zoning.
He stated that recently, “the Arewa Youth Federation came here to clearly; with conscience and articulation, support the Presidential power shift to the South East. The Yoruba people have come, same with the North.
“The older politicians, whose consciences are dead, are the people making arguments about zoning.
Ezeife assured that the region will disappoint, as Nigerians are prepared for a revolutionary, economic, successful dynamic South East person who will fix Nigeria and lead her to explosive development and Nigeria becomes a superpower which God designed us to be.
“We will not disappoint anybody, we are ready, we have ideas of at most 3 people who can be brought and they will liberate Nigeria. In due course, we will present them, but we have no scarcity of qualified candidates in the South East. We appeal to Nigerians to consider fairness, equity and do what is right for one Nigeria, ” he said.
Among dignitaries at the press briefing were Igbos elders of reputable personality: HRM Dr Eze Ibe Nwosu, Igbo 1 of Abuja; Chief Dr Nkonye Kingsley, General Secretary Ohanaeze Ndigbo FCT Abuja, and others.
