The All Progressives Congress should zone the position of the Senate president to the South-East region of the country for the sake of equity and justice.
This was the view of some stakeholders in Enugu who spoke to THE WHISTLER on Friday. According to them, the fact that APC did not score high votes in South East during the recent general elections should not be used against them because their action was sequel to the marginalisation meted to them by the Buhari government.
Comrade Ben Asogwa, chairman of the Trade Union Congress in Enugu State, said APC should zone it to South East to gradually begin to enjoy the support of the region in further elections and policy initiations.
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He said, “APC under Bola Tinubu’s administration should re-unite Nigeria by being fair to all zones. APC might not have gotten many votes from the South-East region, but it still got votes. It won three Senate seats in Ebonyi, got one in Abia as well as in Imo State. I hope that the Tinubu government will differentiate between politics and leadership, and embrace the latter.”
Ebubeagu Felix Okafor, coordinator, Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Organization, blamed APC for lack of support for the party.
According to him, “Buhari’s lopsided appointments which did not factor the South-East region made voters of the region hate the party. It is the same thing that happened to the Peoples Democratic Party presently. PDP’s failure to abide by its agreement on zoning worked against the party in the zone in the last elections. Today, PDP is dead in South East.”
Chinedu Ogbodo, a lawyer, spoke on the ambitions of former governors of Ebonyi and Abia state, Dave Umahi and Orji Kalu, respectively.
He said, “Both ex-governors betrayed us by not supporting the zoning of Nigeria’s president to the South East in the last elections. Umahi and Orji openly worked against Peter Obi of the Labour Party so that they could clinch the Senate presidency. They are selfish. Ironically, they are now talking about zoning when they were shy from supporting zoning during the build-up to the last elections because of their selfish interest.”
However, for Innocent Ozioko, a stalwart of the PDP in Enugu State, APC would be right to zone it to where it got massive votes.
In his words, “Politics is a game of commitment. If South East didn’t vote for APC very well, how would they expect to reap where they didn’t show? Buhari stated this in his first term, and South East repeated the same this time around. I won’t expect APC to zone its Senate president to South East.”
Sunday Eze, a student activist, said, “Ndigbo are always disorganized. We should define our position in Nigeria. Are we seeking Biafra, Igbo presidency or Senate president? Because we don’t know what is pursuing us, we won’t know our destination. Orji Kalu and Umahi are birds of a feather.”