South-East Delegates Were ‘Real Saboteurs’ Of Igbo Cause, Town Unions Allege After Presidential Primaries

The Association of South East Town Union (ASETU), Friday, said the outcome of the presidential primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress was a pointer that the Igbo are being marginalised in the Nigerian polity.

Both political parties produced Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Sen Bola Tinubu as their respective presidential candidates, contrary to insinuations among the Igbo that the political parties would zone the tickets to the South East.

The national president of the group, Chief Emeka Diwe, made this known in a release.

According to him, “The ASETU condemns the outcome of the recently concluded presidential primary elections of the two major political parties, APC, and the PDP, whereby they failed to produce a South-East presidential candidate.

“The outcome of the primaries vividly confirms our continuous cry over the years through various press releases, communiques and other sundry publications regarding the sordid marginalization of Ndigbo within the Nigeria polity. Our fear is that this ugly incidence has graduated to the terrible state of alienation.

“For us, there could be no better time to ensure that Igbo man deservedly becomes the president of Nigeria than now.”

It said going by the constitutions of the major political parties, they were expected to zone the president to the South,and ‘South East was to be the automatic beneficiary being the only zone that has not tasted either the exalted position of the president or vice president since the democratic dispensation that started in 1999’.

The group said, “The South West has had the president for eight years and vice president for eight years by May 29, 2023.

“The South South had the president for six years and the vice president for two years, leaving the South East with none.

“It is only equitable that the South East produces the next president of Nigeria which begins with all the political parties fielding an Igbo presidential candidate.

“The Igbo had made such concession to the Yoruba in the past. But the deep rooted hatred for Ndigbo by other tribes in Nigeria has played out, hence the ruling APC and PDP refused to cede their presidential tickets to the South East, rather, they went to yet another northerner for PDP and a Yoruba for APC.”

ASETU described the outcome of the primaries as ‘brazen injustice and marginalization’.

It however commended former minister of science and technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, for his courage.

ASETU thanked delegates from Ebonyi State for casting their votes for Gov Dave Umahi. It further decried other delegates from South-East region for casting their votes ‘against their brothers’.

It concluded that, “The party primaries have also exposed the real saboteurs in Igbo land. These are the South-East delegates who were chosen to represent Ndigbo but went there to fest their nest.

“They practically sold out their Igbo brothers and voted for aspirants of other regions obviously because of money.”