From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The World Igbo Summit (WIS) has vowed to intensify efforts to ensure that the South-East produces the next president in 2023.
The group’s Director General, Dr Ifedi Okwenna, who addressed newsmen in Abuja, said the body would assemble those interested in becoming President at the 6th edition of its summit, which would be in partnership with Gregory University, to plan how it would be achieved.
Okwenna explained that the South-East would engage in serious dialogue with other regions and organisations to support their quest in 2023.
‘In all honesty, every Igbo man needs power because we have been out of power for a long time, although we might be divergent in the approach,’ Okwenna said.
‘The World Igbo Summit group is an intellectual powerhouse. All we are going to do is to weave ideas… there is going to be an executive session where all the presidential candidates are going to meet and quietly discuss on the way forward.
‘That is the first [step] the Summit is going to take. In most cases, if we are playing the individualistic politics we can’t bring all of them together, but all of them have agreed to attend.
‘The Igbo nation cannot be president [by] itself; we need other people and that is why we have other cultural groups. It is not all about making noise in the media or forming small groups.
‘Representatives of other social-cultural groups such as PANDEF, Afenifere, World Yoruba Summit Group, Middlebelt Forum, Arewa Consultative Forum, etc, shall attend and deliver goodwill messages,’ he said
‘It shall be a platform to develop the strategic formula for engagement of each segment of Nigerian society, to achieve our agenda going forward, based on mutual trust, respect and shared understanding.
‘We should recall that this 2020, Nigeria’s sociopolitical and economic life [have been] negatively impacted by the ravaging effect of COVID-19 global pandemic, the impact of the recently suspended #EndSARS campaign, the many security challenges the country is trying to contain with, etc.’