In what looks like a dramatic turn around, a former member of Nigeria’s House of Representatives and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Hon. Victor Afam Ogene, has said the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is favoured to win the 2023 presidential election, ahead of his party
Hon. Ogene, who played a major role for his party to win the November 6, governorship election in Anambra, which it however lost, said the option for the South-east is to embrace the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), having been left of power equation in the ruling party.
The former lawmaker, who gave this position in a statement he issued Tuesday, therefore called on Igbo leaders across political divides to urgently convoke a summit of Ndigbo, if the zone is not to be left outside the power loop for yet another eight years.
The former Director, Media and Publicity in the APCs 2021 gubernatorial campaigns in Anambra state, said “it was particularly irksome that in the clamour for the rotation of the presidential stool to the South, APC leaders appear to have deliberately refrained from specifically zoning the position to the South East, in the spirit of equity, fairness, good conscience and precedent.
“The eight years of the current All Progressives Congress, APC-led federal government – most of which the Igbo spent lamenting its near obliteration from the country’s power calculus – is gradually coming to an end, yet there is neither an indication that the situation would be redressed, nor is there a concerted attempt by Ndigbo to avert a repeat of the status quo,” Hon. Ogene said in statement released today.
“For those who are wont to hide under a finger, by citing the less than admirable acceptance of the party in the region, providence and precedent offers a simple answer: there once was a President who emerged in spite of electoral rejection by his ward, local government, state and region.
“Now that Ndigbo find themselves in similar situation, why would the rules of engagement change suddenly? Are the power brokers who despite everything else resolved the 1999 quagmire in favour of the preservation of national unity no longer alive to apply the same balm of inclusivity in order to accommodate Ndigbo?
“Today’s APC stands in the gap as the behemoth People’s Democratic Party, PDP at the time it took the largely unpopular but historic decision to support a candidate from the South West to emerge as President. With a country bursting at the seams by feelings of alienation, wouldn’t an affirmative action initiative offer some form of panacea, if not outright healing, for the many disparate agitators who struttle the landscape?
“For every cursory observer of the ferocious politicking currently going on in the APC, however, it would be akin to wanting the sun to stand still, should one crave a Presidential ticket from the party for a South Easterner.”
