Southeast For President Activist Urges Ohanaeze To Shun Partisan Politics

The national coordinator, Southeast for Presidency 2023 Movement (SEFORP 2023), Rev Okechukwu Christopher Obioha, has called on the Ohanaeze Ndigbo to eschew partisan politics. Obioha disclosed this in a release made available to THE WHISTLER in Enugu on Wednesday.

According to him, “I strongly urge Ohanaeze to remain nonpartisan as a socio-cultural organisation of all Ndigbo.” He however urged the apex Igbo group to ‘remain resolute to accept and pursue this divine project’ of ensuring that Nigeria’s president of the Southeast extraction was actualized in 2023.

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On efforts of his movement toward the goal, Rev Obioha said it sensitizes Nigerians ‘to ensure that political power spreads across the six geo-political zones of the country’. In his words, “We recounted that in the struggle for the independence of the country, the tripods of the North, East and West played major roles. However, more than 50 years Nigeria has existed as a country, political power has rotated between the North and South, and while politicians in the two divides of the North and West have enjoyed power at the highest level, the East had been relegated.

“The further political delineation of the country into six geo political zones of Northcentral, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest, Southsouth and Southeast for easier administrative purposes has not helped to address the imbalance in political power sharing and infrastructural development. While the power equation has continued to rotate, it has been centered around the Northwest, Northeast, Northcentral, Southwest and Southsouth, leaving again the Southeast.”

He regretted that the military era also did not favour the Southeast. In his words, “The years the military occupied the political space were dominated by army officials from the North. Under the democratic administrations, the North has also benefitted more than others by producing the late Shehu Shagari, Musa Yar’Adua and incumbent President Muhammed Buhari. The Southwest has benefitted by producing Olusegun Obasanjo as military head of state and civilian head of state, including the few years Ernest Shonekan presided over the affairs of the country as interim head of government.

“The Southsouth benefitted from the wind of leadership few years ago when Goodluck Jonathan transmitted from vice president to president, and for two years held the reins of power. He re-contested election for that office and won. That victory made it possible for him to govern the country for another four years, making it six solid years that Southsouth held power at the centre.”

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He expressed hope that various political parties would zone their presidential slots to the Southeast come 2023, stating that, “This is based on our conviction that doing so is right and just. That is why we came together under the banner of Southeast for Presidency 2023 Movement (SEFORP2023) to begin to advocate that it is the turn of the Southeast to produce the next president in 2023.

“As a movement, our desire is that all political parties cede their presidential tickets to the Southeast zone in 2023 while other aspirations/interests from other zones should be subsumed into that of the Southeast in the spirit of equity. Since Southeast has supported other zones in the past to produce presidents of the country, we feel it is time for other zones to support the southeast.”

Obioha also commended the conveners of the recent Southeast political leaders’ meeting across parties at Igbere home of Senate chief whip Orji Uzor Kalu where they requested political parties to unconditionally zone their presidential slots to the Southeast for equity.

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