2023: Igbo Presidency can’t be compromised, says Ndigbo group

By Nwanosike Onu, Awka

There is no going back on Igbo presidency in 2023, a group Igbo Presidency Project Movement 2023 has declared.

It also attacked the leader of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) Yerima Shettima and his group as selfish based on his comment on 2023 presidency.

Igbo Presidency Project Movement 2023, led by Comrade Arinzechukwu Napoleon Igboeli, further declared ACF’s stand as insulting to Igbo.

Shettima, had said the North would produce the President for the country again in 2023 despite having been on the saddle with President Muhammadu Buhari since 2015

Igboeli, in a statement on Saturday in Awka, Anambra state, said it was insulting to the sensitibities of the 365 ethnic groups that make up the Federal Republic of Nigeria .

He also described Shettima’s comments as unfortunate and reckless.

“ Countries are not held together by force, but by a sense of justice, fairness and equity.

” Thus it is instrumental for young Nigerians like us who believe in the unity of Nigeria based on fairness and equity to immediately react to statements made by my good friend, the coordinator of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Yerima Shettima.

“It clearly called for power to remain in the North after President Muhammadu Buhari would have exhausted his eight year tenure in 2023”

“Such a statement smacks largely of ignorance or contempt of the attempt by those who fought to restore our democracy and preserve the fragile unity of Nigeria by reaching the conventional notion of zoning which encouraged the rotation of the presidency between North and South”

” This trend which has been followed almost religiously with the exception of the Goodluck Jonathan era which was brought upon us by the demise of President Umaru Musa Yar Adua in office but was immediately corrected in 2015 when these progressive forces brought change”

“Shettima not only made the call for the presidency to remain in the North, but also in a hubris like manner dismissed the morally backed agitation of NdiIgbo to produce one of its own for the office come 2023”

“Now, while we agree that Shettima is entitled to his opinion, it is however more sacrosanct that we enlighten him and all others who may seek to toe such path by understanding the consequences of denying NdiIgbo and the SouthEast Region that position ”

“Igbo is the only major ethnic group that is yet to have a shot at the presidency since the return of democracy as well as the most marginalized group since independence as regards national leadership”

” Both cases make it imperative for the country to allow the SouthEast zone and NdiIgbo to produce a president of Igbo extraction come 2023″

The Igbo group warned that the situation today could not accommodate the thinking of Yerima, knowing full well that Igbo had been marginalized a lot over the years.

“And since all the zones in the south have had a shot at the presidency in the persons of Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan of both the SouthWest and South South respectively, then it behooves us in the spirit of equity and to strengthen the unity of this country allow a president of Igbo extraction,” the group stated.

The National Coordinator, however promised that his group was not going to leave any stone unturned in their attempt to achieve the goal by working with all stakeholders in the country to deliver.