From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
A senior lawyer, Oba Maduabuchi, has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of taking the people of South East region for granted by denying them its presidential ticket.
Maduabuchi, who was miffed by the outcome of the presidential primary of the party won by former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, wondered how the party deliberately overlooked the presidential aspirants from the South East region.
He, however, blamed the Igbo for not putting their house in order politically and allowing themselves to be used for monetary gains.
Maduabuchi, who spoke with Daily Sun in Abuja, said unless and until the Igbo vote against the PDP, they can never get the presidency.
“When we returned to politics in 1998, the strength of the PDP was in the South East. In fact, all the states in the South East were controlled by PDP, until recently when we have All Progressives Congress in Imo and All Progressives Grand Alliance in Anambra.
The point I am making is that the bastion of PDP has always been in the South East. So, when President Muhammadu Buhari became president in 2015, the expectation generally was that at the end of his tenure, the presidency will come to the South, especially to the South East that has never produced the president, but they brought in Atiku.
He lamented that the South East is the only part in the country where you have unanimity in terms of political allegiance.
“It is either PDP or nothing. The other political parties don’t exist. That is why the South East is taken for granted by the PDP, because, whether it campaign or not, whether it fields a candidate from the region or not, PDP expects that the Igbo will vote for the party.”
The outcome of the PDP presidential primary just tells u that the Igbo did not understand politics.
“They are five Igbo speaking states. That means they had over 100 delegates, but none of their candidates got more than 15 votes. Pius Anyim, a former president of the Senate, was the highest aspirant from the zone with 14 votes? Then you begin to wonder, where are the Igbo? Where is the politics? So, the Igbo should either go back to school to learn how to play politics or forget politics and focus on spare parts business where they excel.
Meanwhile, Maduabuchi traced the problem of the Igbo to what he described as their republican nature.
“The problem of the South East is our republican nature. Because we are republican, we don’t have people we look unto. In the North, for instance, the elders and emir and other traditional chiefs control everything. If you want to get anything in the North, you go to the traditional rulers and get it.
“That is not the case in the South East where everyone is his own boss. You build your house, fenced it with a gate and put the key in your pocket. You have your own security, borehole and generator and don’t care what is happening at the next door.
“It is not like that in other parts of the country. If you want to get something from the West, you go through the Obas, the non-politicians who the people respect and you will get what you want. It is not the case in Igbo land.