2023 PRESIDENCY: Ohanaeze, Afenifere reply Fashola

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has got responses from Ohanaeze Ndigbo and Afenifere over his comment on a South West politician becoming president in 2023.

The groups, who are the apex socio cultural bodies for the Igbo and the Yoruba said their major concern at the moment is not who leads Nigeria in 2023 but who will restructure Nigeria before that time.

Fashola had while speaking at a town hall meeting organized by the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture said that voting for Buhari would amount to the presidency returning to the Southwest in 2023.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, from the South West became Nigeria’s President in 1999 when democracy was restored in the country and was in leadership till 2007.

He was succeeded by a northerner, ex-President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (late), who was succeeded by immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan (South-South). He was in power for about six years, as he completed Yar’Adua’s first term and was reelected for a fresh term.

Jonathan failed to get another four year-term as he was defeated as incumbent in 2015 by President Muhammadu Buhari and power returned to the North.

While South East politicians have been pleading with the people of the zone to vote for Buhari to win the 2019 election so that they may taste the seat of Presidency in 2023, Fashola thinks power should return to South West and also demanded their votes for Buhari.

In its response to Fashola, Ohanaeze Ndigbo said in a statement through its National Publicity Secretary, Prince Uche Achi-Okpaga, that the South-East was not in favour of who becomes the president, his vice and other political positions but on the restructuring of the country.

“On the contradicting pronouncements of the present Government and other consequential revelations, promising the South East and the South West of the 2023 presidency, permit me to encapsulate that to truth, the present government is to build on sand.

“For the umpteenth time, the disposition of Ohanaeze is not in favour of who becomes the president, his vice and other political positions. The stand of Ohanaeze is hell bent on restructuring. Without restructuring the much an Igbo president or vice could do is to enrich few privileged individuals.

“Even if he desires he would not have the leverage, opportunity or manifest impetus to impact on the generality of the people.

“The way in which the constitution is designed is not favourable to the less privileged regions. The only soothing balm, as it stands now, is restructuring the political system.

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“In a country running a federal system of government and yet the respective states cannot legislate on virtually everything is unacceptable. This is because even in the concurrent list the Federal policy preponderates over those of the States, while the residual list is virtually empty and insignificant,” the statement read.

Responding also, Afenifere spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, expressing the position of the Afenifere on the matter in a monitored report said that Buhari’s advocates in South East and South West are not in tune with the mood of both zones.

According to him, what both zones are currently looking for is not Nigerian presidency in 2023, but restructuring in 2019.

He argued that if the country is restructured in 2019 and everybody has the autonomy to run their lives as they want within a corporate Nigeria, both zones may even say that they don’t want the presidency in 2023.

He cited the incident in the First Republic, where Ahmadu Bello refused to be prime minister of Nigeria but sent his lieutenant to be the prime minister of Nigeria while he stayed back as premier of Northern Nigeria.

He therefore said that Fashola and those saying that Buhari is the fastest route to 2023 are not in sync with the mood of the South East and South West zones of the country.

 

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