The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has formed a national action committee to actualise a President of South East extraction in next year’s general elections.
Headed by President General of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, George Obiozor, with its Secretary General, Amb. Okey Emuchay as secretary, the committee would deploy persuasion in reaching out to key political actors across the country as well as other critical stakeholders and leaders.
This formed part of the communique of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of Ohanaeze issued in Enugu on Wednesday night.
Presenting the communique to newsmen, Obiozor said they would soon announce the composition of the “persuasion team that would recognise 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 President of South East origin as an idea whose time has come, and reminded Nigerians and Nigeria that at its present age of about 62, the country needed introspective and retrospective thinking in order to reassess the journey so far as a nation or as a country.
Obiozor warned that Nigeria is facing synchronized national crisis which could lead to its eventual collapse or dismemberment. He restated that the Igbo were not secessionists or separatists, adding that they were prepared and deserved the Presidency because it was politically defensible and morally justifiable.
“If the truth must be told, the nation has made two consistent mistakes that have worsened the nation’s other 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 of the country is not totally different but even more complicated. Today indeed, 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. 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 also and 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.”