The Chairman of the Committee on Wealth Creation in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Jude Chukwuemeka Idimogu has charged leaders of the South-East to put their house in order and engage with other zones if they want the South East to produce Nigeria’s president in 2023. He also spoke on other issues in an interview with LAWRENCE ENYOGHASU
What’s your reaction to this issue of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2023?
One of the reasons Nigeria keeps failing is because of its widespread injustice. One of such apparent cases is side-lining the Igbos from the presidential contest arena. For many years now, since the leadership of Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe and Aguiyi Ironsi, the South-East has not been allowed to produce any president for the country. Whatever the reason maybe, now is the time to let them too. Zoning of the presidential seat should be done putting the Igbo in calculation. The way to get the country thrive is what we all yearn for. Thus if it is an Igbo president who can do the job, let him. We must stop this injustice of marginalisation of the Igbos and the born-to-rule ideology of the north. The Igbos are being flogged and prevented from crying. Years have gone by, global politics and democracy have revolved, and we must revolve with it to keep the country united in peace. We must look for leaders with values and principles to lead us regardless of their tribe or religion, and if at all, we must continue the zoning phenomenon, we must do so justly. The country doesn’t belong solely to the north, nor the South or West, or East but to all Nigerians. Therefore it must be handled as such. They should be recognized.
Why has this marginalisation continued?
The Igbo have the problem of leadership. They are so endowed that they are spread all over Nigeria and they can gather a lot of votes, but they are too divided. An Imo person, an Enugu person, an Ebonyi man will not listen to the other man. They have the money. If they sit down and aggregate what they can offer, they have more money than almost everybody in Nigeria. Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, agitations for the zoning of the presidency to the Southeast have intensified recently. Leaders of the region say that it is their turn to produce the president, warning that the region would vote against any political party that nominates its candidate from another region. Such warning is not how to persuade your counterpart to give you a chance. The leaders of the region should have another approach to the matter. They should have a subtle approach. It might not happen now for them but they should not use threats.
If nobody has told Ohanaeze Ndigbo before, the concern today from some other regions is that if Nnamdi Kanu plays the role of Aguiyi Ironsi in leading a militant revolt against constitutional government in the South-East under Igbo presidency, the president will be pressured by his base to facilitate the UN processes for the South-East to call for independence from Nigeria. Thus an Igbo President may be compromised in protecting the political and geographic boundaries of Nigeria whilst Nigeria remains under the threat of IPOB’s secessionist activities. It is unfair, but neither the South-South nor the South-East or even the North-East has the votes combined to determine the presidency on their own. We have to negotiate with other regions and where prominent leaders express such concerns based on the similarities of our history and contemporary circumstances, it indicates to me that the leaders of the South-East have not done enough before now in dealing with and addressing the challenge that IPOB poses to their aspirations in leading Nigeria.
If the South East loses out, what then happens? Should the South-West be considered?
Yes. The South West should be considered in so many ways. They have a unifying voice and a major leader. Unless we want to fool ourselves, nobody is more prepared than Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He has been there since. He has unified the region and made the state stable. It is his long-time heart’s desire to become the president of Nigeria. He is already prepared to give his best back to the country. When you look at his antecedents, he has seen it all; he fought for the democracy we are enjoying today. He is a good accountant that has managed resources that are as big as Nigeria’s economy. He puts Lagos State on the right track, saving them from debts. Nigeria and Nigerians youth are the biggest losers if he does not become the president in 2023. This is a man who is consulting on how to revive another country’s economy. A man who other governments employ to revive their economy, yet we are allowing politics to stop us from having one of the best brains in the world as president, with him as president I am very sure that the current debt of Nigeria would have been reduced or would never exist because this is a man that knows what it is to be a debtor and a creditor. He is a man that knows where something should be fixed well. I meant, he should be a Nigerian economic fixer. He is a Nigerian who has given opportunities to all that have come across him. We need someone who has been there and we will lead the youth, taking us to a greater height. The next president Nigerians should be looking out for is someone who will lift us from the penury of this debt and rescue the dying economy.