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2023 presidency: Buhari and the Igbo dilemma

OLUSOLA FABIYI writes on the dilemma of South-East leaders  to support President Muhammadu Buhari for another four years in order to achieve their age-long desire of producing the President in 2023

Hope Uzodinma is one of the political juggernauts from the South-East geopolitical zone of the country. An astute politician, Uzodinma represents Imo West Senatorial District in the Senate on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party. His region is politically troubled and angry. The reason for the sustained anger is alleged maginalisation of the zone by the other sections of the country as it has yet to produce the nation’s president, an opportunity that other zones have enjoyed. The zone is waiting unwearyingly for when it will be able to grab power at the centre. In order to achieve this, political leaders from the zone have therefore embarked on political manoeuvrings and consultations with the hope that, soon, power would swing to their side.

Among leaders from the zone, who are scheming to achieve the craving, is Uzodinma. Having been on the political meadow for some time, the senator, who has a ceremonial title of Onwa-Netiri Oha of Omuma in the Oru Local Government Area of Imo State, however, has a different opinion on how to achieve the much-desired dream of his people. Unlike when the entire five states in the South-East rejected President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 and gave him a paltry 198,248 votes, Uzodinma says the tactic must change as the country prepares for the 2019 general elections. Though Buhari belongs to a rival political party, the All Progressives Congress, and has delayed to make public his desire to bid for a second term in office, the senator insists that his people must queue behind the man his people loathe if they must get the desired support to achieve their aim in 2023.

His argument, to some political pundits, makes sense. Uzodinma argues that since Buhari constitutionally has only four years to spend in office if he wins, it is better for the South-East to cast their votes for him. He says any other candidate apart from Buhari is billed to spend eight years in office.

As a matter of fact, his party, the PDP, has equally ceded its presidential ticket to the 19 northern states of the country, including the Federal Capital Territory. Uzodinma defends his stand. “If we (Igbo) don’t support Buhari, who has only four years left, then how can 2023 be a reality? Any fresh northerner on the seat would be there till 2027. President Buhari is the only northern candidate, who, if elected, must relinquish power in 2023, thereby paving the way for the South-East.

“So, yes, for Igbo like me, I will most definitely support Buhari for second term and I think other right-thinking south-easterners should do the same.”

He says that the expected power shift would be used to assuage the pains of the zone, which he said, was punished by the PDP in 1998 because of the general conviction of the Biafra war they fought against the rest of the country. “In 1998, former Vice-President Dr. Alex Ekwueme was coasting home to victory with the PDP presidential ticket. It took a high level of conspiracy to stop him and people believe it was because he was Igbo and because of the stigma of the civil war.

“So, if in 2023, Igbo is stopped again, the simple conclusion would be that the rest of Nigeria does not welcome them as equal stakeholders in the Nigerian project,” he stated.

A former President of the Senate, Senator Ken Nnamani, shares in some of the points raised by the senator.

Nnamani, who was a member of the PDP before defecting to the ruling APC, also said for equity and fairness, his people should be allowed to produce the President in 2023. He argued that that could only be possible if Buhari was giving overwhelming support in the South-East in the 2019 election. Nnamani added, “That argument (supporting Buhari in 2019) makes sense. It is the best option in order for my people to produce the President in 2023.

“This is because the President will only spend four more years in office and it is naturally expected that the next President, after his four more years, would be the turn of the South-East. So, 2023 appears more feasible and realistic on the above premise if we are talking about justice and equity.”

Expectedly, Chief Osita Okechukwu, another stalwart of the ruling party, shares the same views with Uzodinma and Nnamani. But besides the anticipated support the South-East wants to garner from the Buhari camp in 2023, Okechukwu stated that the President was also doing what no other leader had done in terms of infrastructure in the zone. The Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria said, “Buhari is the only candidate expected to spend just four years in office after 2019. Others will spend eight years. So, if we don’t vote for him, then we will have to wait for eight years and the end of which we don’t know.

“Yes, we did not give him the desired 25 per cent votes in 2015. We have to do so now because this will enhance our bid in 2023. Apart from benefiting politically at the end of his tenure, we should also remember that the President has earmarked N16.3bn for the South-East from the N100bn Suku bond. Also, the Enugu-Onitsha, Enugu-Port Harcourt, Umuahia – Owerri roads are some of the ongoing road projects in the zone.”

Apart from the ongoing projects in the zone, Okechukwu said the South-East remained the only geopolitical zone in the entire southern region that had yet to produce the president. “If we therefore weigh the facts and we want to benefit from the zoning convention and arrangement, we need to align with the incumbent. We should also not forget that out of the three regions in the southern part of the country, it is only the South-East that has yet to produce the president,” he added.

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Prince Uche Secondus, disagreed vehemently with the trio of Uzodinma, Nnamani and Okechukwu. He believed that the struggle to make Nigeria a better country should not be reduced to ethnicity and where the leader comes from. Secondus said it would be disastrous for both the country and its citizens to have Buhari as the driver behind the wheel of the nation for another four years after May 29, 2019. He added, “The struggle to free Nigeria from oppressors, from economic stagnation, from corruption, from nepotism, from insecurity and all forms of executive recklessness goes beyond tribe and ethnicity.

“The founding fathers of Nigeria were never tribalistic and sectional. Nobody would have been agitating for a change in government if the President was doing well. Are people saying we should endure this darkness and pain for another five years when at the end of the day, there are no indices to say that things would be better? Are they saying that the killings, the kidnappings and economic insecurity should continue?

“The leader we want is a detribalised one, and not the one who would come and divide the country along ethnicity and religious lines. No, that’s not what we want as a country.”

The Vice Chairman of the PDP in the South-East, Mr. Austin Umahi, nonetheless said there was no need debating the issue. “Nobody knows tomorrow because 2023 is still far. Moreover, I’m not a member of the APC. So, we will cross that bridge when we get to it,” he stated.

A former Minister of Transportation, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, explained that the call on the Igbo to support Buhari in exchange for a similar gesture remained the bait. He said with the way the President had treated the people of the region in the last three years, anybody who believed in such inducement believed in what he described as political garbage. “I wish those who will believe that kind of political garbage best of luck. How can Buhari guarantee that? Anybody who thinks that Buhari will give them (the Igbo) presidency with the treatment he had meted out to them (since he assumed office) believes in political garbage,” the former minister added.

For now, the debate on whether to support Buhari or not rages, even when the President has yet to openly declare his second term ambition and the main opposition party, the PDP, continues in its rebranding process and a determined search for an acceptable presidential candidate from the incumbent President’s zone.