Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri

An elder statesman from the South East, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, has cautioned leader of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Alhaji Bello Bodejo, over his utterances on the 2023 presidency.

In an interview, Badejo said former Lagos governor, Senator Bola Tinubu and the Igbo of South East, should forget any form of aspiration for the Presidency in 2023.

Iwuanyanwu said such comment was capable of instigating crisis and dividing the nation.

The member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees declared that only Nigerians can decide who will be their leader and not any man or tribe.

“Nobody has the right to decide who Nigeria’s next president should be or where to come from except Nigerians themselves. For any person, irrespective of his status to arrogate himself the power to decide who becomes the president of the country, such statement should be avoided because it is capable of causing disunity.

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“It is not right for anybody to disconnect the South East or South West and then want it to come permanently from one part of the country. I think it is wrong. I want Nigerians who want the unity of this country to stop making this type of statement, because such statement does not make for the unity of this country,” he said.

Iwuanyanwu, a strong believer in the country’s old National Anthem, which said though tongue and tribe may differ, “in brotherhood we stand,” said it was based on the foregoing that people like him laboured at various times to unite the different ethnic groups and religions.

He, however, noted that in choosing the country’s leader, “every man should be judged according to his ability, intellect and integrity and not according to his tribe or loyalty to anybody.”

He expressed worry over the development,  which he said was capable of sending bad signal to the youths.

“I am worried about the future of the country, as a grand patron of the youths. I have the ability to fight for them, we should create an enabling environment 0where they would prosper and say this is my country, but I am seeing a bad signal and it is not good at all,” Iwuayanwu said.