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Igbos Warned Against Biafra Option If 2023 Presidency Eludes Them

Igbos have been warned against making statements suggesting that they would take the option of Biafra as being championed by the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, should Nigeria’s president of Igbo extraction fail to emerge in 2023.

A public affairs analyst, Mr Chinedu Nwobodo, gave the warning during an Urban Radio programme in Enugu which was monitored by THE WHISTLER. Nwobodo also said that the clamour for the Nigerian president of an Igbo extraction was not in conflict with the call for restructuring.

In his words, “Political leaders should throw their weight behind restructuring. Even when an Igbo man is elected president, let restructuring be legally and constitutionally done so that Nigeria will be restructured for the better. But if what I read in the social media is true, that if an Igbo man was not elected president in 2023 that some interest will start to support Nnamdi Kanu, it will mean that we are not joining Nnamdi Kanu now because we want the president. That will be a complication.”

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Speaking on the same programme, an Enugu-based lawyer, Alex Amujiogu, called for sustained clamour for the Igbo presidency in 2023, stating that since 1999 when Ndigbo failed to produce the president of Nigeria, there had been mutual suspicion among the Igbo elite. He said the solution is for Ndigbo in various political parties to work assiduously to ensure that one of their own emerged as their presidential candidates.

He said, “Let those in the APC galvanise themselves properly so that an Igbo man becomes their presidential candidate. Let those in the PDP do the same. Those in the media should also clamour for an Igbo presidency. When an Igbo man gets into the office, he will definitely know that his emergence is of the Igbo desire.”

Recall that former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo, was recently reported in the Vanguard to have called on Igbo people to bequeath a secured future for themselves and generations yet unborn by supporting the Igbo presidency come 2023. Nwodo was quoted to have said that the elite in the Southeast would join Nnamdi Kanu if the region did not get the presidency shot in 2023.

In his words, “For 50 years now, we have been persecuted for fighting for freedom. When will this marginalisation stop? Anybody who loves Nigeria and who wishes Nigeria well should go for an Igbo presidency in 2023 for unity, fairness, equity and for Nigeria to move forward. It is only an Igbo man who will not marginalise any part of Nigeria because we constitute the semen that holds the country together. We are the only tribe that you find in every nook and cranny of Nigeria; Igbo are doing businesses and developing wherever they are as if it is their home. I don’t believe that the Igbo are not united; there has never been a time when any region produced a consensus candidate. Everybody emerged through primary elections. It doesn’t matter how many people are interested in it. They will be subjected to party primaries, and the person with the highest vote wins. I agree with Nnamdi Kanu in everything he says about the marginalisation of the Igbo. He, more than any other person, has put it on the international map.

“If Nigeria tells the elite from the Southeast that they would be treated as second class citizens in Nigeria, and that they can never be president, almost all of them will go with Kanu to fight for Biafra. In the spirit of fairness and equity, Nigeria should give the presidency to the Southeast in 2023; otherwise, we will join him and fight for Biafra.”

2023 PresidencyBIAFRAigbo nationigbo presidency
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