By Vincent Kalu

As the race for the 2023 general elections gathers momentum, various groups in the south and north – Afenifere, Middle Belt Forum (MBF), Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) and Southern Kaduna Peoples’ Union (SOKAPU) have insisted that the country must elect a President of Igbo extraction in 2023 in the spirit of justice and fairness.

Chief Ayo Adebanjo, the leader of Afenifere, speaking with Saturday Sun, said based on justice, fairness and equity, the South-East should produce the president.

His words: “We have been doing rotation. It is only the South-East that has not produced the president. How can the rest of the country be ganging up against them? We are not saying the truth. It is their right to produce the president, any other argument is selfish and such people are not serious about Nigeria.”

On why he is not supporting the Yoruba people of the South-West, where some notable politicians have also declared their interest in contesting for president in 2023, Chief Adebanjo emphasised that he was taught politics of fairness, justice and equity. He noted that having produced a president in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, and a Vice-President in Professor Yemi Osinbajo, the Yoruba do not deserve the presidency in 2023.

He asked: “Have the Yoruba not produced the president and the vice president? Have the South-East got it? If you were in the shoes of the Igbo and the presidency is coming to the south and it is going back to the Yoruba, how would you feel? Is that fairness? Anything short of zoning the presidency to the South-East, you are pushing them out of Nigeria.

“We have said that we don’t want anybody from the north as candidate; that is simple. The north has no right as of now. It is South, and it is South-East. It’s as simple as that if we are going to have elections.”

In the same vein, National President of Middle Belt FORUM (MBF), Dr Bitrus Pogu has also pitched his tent with those agitating for Igbo President in 2023.

He said: “All of us are being passionate about justice, we don’t want injustice; since we don’t want injustice, the South-East deserves it more than any other group. The Middle Belt is associated with the North; we pitch our camp to say that it has to go to the south.

“People in the south are very rational and they should look at where this thing is deserved. Even in the South-East, we need somebody who can transform Nigeria; we need a Nigerian president and not a sectional president. Though some of them have not declared officially, there are so many good materials in the South-East – people who have track records of service, but we are not interested in recycled leaders. There are so many people in that zone who have capacity to move Nigeria forward, to transform the country, to unite the nation so that we have a country that everybody can say it is his or her own.

“In fact, there are more industrious people in the South-East than in other parts of the country. Somebody who is industrious and knows business should be able to manage a country like Nigeria.”           

Also, the President, Southern Kaduna Peoples’ Union (SOKAPU), Jonathan Asake, has stressed that after Buhari’s eight years, power should go back to the South-East in the spirit of justice, fairness and equity.

PANDEF’s National Publicity Secretary, Kenneth Robinson, has also said the Niger Delta was in support of the South-East producing the successor to President Buhari, adding that the Igbo take the lead.

“For PANDEF, we stand for power shift to Southern Nigeria. Igbo people deserve the presidency of Nigeria.,” he said at a meeting of Southern leaders. The Association of Arewa Community in Igboland has also insisted that the president must be produced by the South-East in 2023.  Its National President, Alhaji Mohammed Umaru, who made the appeal at a news briefing early in the week at Umuahia, described the Igbo as “an accommodating” people.

Umaru harped on the unity of the country and stated that it was important to support the Igbo to actualise their presidential ambition come 2023.