Prominent pan-Igbo sociopolitical pressure organisation, the South East Revival Group (SERG) has called on Nigerians to ignore those it described as a “few inconsistent and selfish” Igbo fuelling anti-Peter Obi campaign ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
It said, “they are on a wild goose chase if they believe that any of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidates is interested in uniting the country through fairness and equity as they have equally exhibited selfishness in their quest to emerge as flagbearers.”
SERG reacted yesterday to the reports credited to some elite of South East extraction who have been making anti- Obi comments in a statement signed by its president and national coordinator, Chief Willy Ezugwu.
Some PDP and All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftains have been urging the South East to support their presidential candidates in exchange for their support for the emergence of a South Easterner as president after their tenure.
But insisting that there is no going back in the “total support for the Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi across the country”, SERG said “the fact that individuals who are part of the country’s failed leadership are exposing themselves is a good development in the build up to an emerging new Nigeria.”
The SERG said, “We recall that in 2017, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Arthur Eze, had called for support from the people of the South East for the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, stressing that it is only through President Buhari that the quest for Igbo presidency can actualised.
“Arthur Eze, who is the founder and chairman of oil exploration company, Atlas Oranto Petroleum, made the call in Abakaliki during Buhari’s visit to the state in 2017.
“At the end of the day, the Governor David Umahi he was positioning for President got disappointed when he didn’t get support from Mr. President to emerge the presidential candidate of APC, despite dumping his party, the PDP to join APC in anticipation that President Buhari will endorse him.
“The same game is on ahead of the 2023 presidential election, and this time, Anambra State Governor, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo is the bait they are using to deceive a few Igbo elites that a support for APC or PDP in the presidential election will ensure that a President of Nigeria of Igbo extraction will be made possible whenever the PDP or APC candidate may have finished his tenure.”
The group said if the support of the likes of Arthur Eze and David Umahi for APC did not translate into a support for an Igbo to emerge presidential candidate of the APC in 2023, which is what is fair and just, it will be unthinkable to believe that the emergence of an Igbo as president will be possible as being promised over the years.
“Nigerians are fully aware that it is unjust, unfair and devoid of equity for another Northerner to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023. How can a Muslim northerner replace a Muslim northerner in 2023? Is it just? Is it fair? Is equity not lacking in that?
“Nigerians of good conscience know that PDP unjustly denied the Igbos the presidential ticket contrary to its zoning arrangement as enshrined in the party’s constitution.
“In the same vein, it is unfair and unjust to the South East for a Yoruba southerner to succeed President Buhari after Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba, completed an eight-year tenure as President and the Yoruba has a sitting Vice-President who would have completed his eight years in 2023.
“As for Senator Adolphus Wabara who claimed that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar will hand over to an Igbo, how can that be when no South East man or woman was good enough for the position of a Vice-President in Atiku’s planned government in 2023?” the group said.
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