2023: Igbo shortlist three presidential aspirants

Tue, Jul 7, 2020
By publisher
3 MIN READ

Politics

CHUKWUEMEKA Ezeife, elder statesman and former Governor of Anambra State, has said that the quest for the nation’s president of Igbo extraction in 2023 is on course, with three out of initial 11 personalities already shortlisted to fly the flag.

Ezeife, 81, while speaking in Abuja at the weekend, declined to mention the names of those who emerged top contenders for the race, but disclosed that mobilisation had begun in earnest.

Insisting that it was premature to make public the favoured names, Ezeife explained that Ndigbo do not intend to go on a solo effort, but would adequately and appropriately lobby, engage, and even beg other geo-political zone and stakeholders to ensure that justice is done by having a south-easterner occupy the presidential seat in the country in 2023.

Ezeife sounded optimistic when asked if he was getting the appropriate support for the project.

According to him: “For now, I think we are getting appropriate support and we think that by 2022, nobody will be talking about anything else, and there will be no controversy about it.

“We are not going to present 1,000 Igbo persons to go and vie for the presidency. As I have been told, from the 11 persons selected, three persons are being shortlisted so that there will be no confusion.

“It is premature to name these persons being considered. The Middle Belt youth went to a meeting and decided to support the quest for South-East presidency, but they wonder who in Igbo land do they prefer.

“So, they did a mock election and picked a candidate from among many names you know.

“One person won, and even now they are spreading their network without using the name of anybody. But we know who they picked.”

The former Political Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo, further averred that the need to fix and develop Nigeria can be solved by the egalitarian nature of the Igbo man, who as president, would not pay lip service to the imperative of wiping out under development, destitution and hunger in the country.

His words: “Ndigbo make Nigeria look like a nation. Wherever an Igbo person lives, he builds and develops like his home.

“That is the Igbo saying that the average Igbo man applies as his home, everywhere he goes. They are the only people that brings the greatest development everywhere they live, aside the government in that place.

“Justice demands that an Igbo should be made president. And I can tell you that this imperative of Justice, equity and food conscience resonates among all people of goodwill in Nigeria and across the world.

“The need to fix Nigeria, to develop Nigeria, raise the dignity of Nigerians and the black people on earth, compels the need to have an Igbo man as president in 2023.

“The Igbo man wants his children or even apprentice to be bigger and more endowed than him. So, that Igbo man will not want to have destitute population, or what others may call Almajiri or Talakawa. We make people grow in stature, industry and education.

“An Igbo president will apply egalitarianism and everybody will be able to look out for each other’s welfare.

“So whether you are looking for justice or effectiveness, positiveness, development, you should be looking for Igbo president come 2023. – News Express

– Jul. 7, 2020 @ 8:12 GMT |

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