2023 Presidency: South-east Group Warns Kinsmen Against Betrayal

BY ONYEKACHUKWU IBEZIM – Less than 48 hours after warning political leaders in the Southeast against betrayal and compromising the zone’s resolve to claim the Presidency of Nigeria come 2023 general elections, the Ahamefuna Socio-cultural organisation says there will be no backing down on its stand.

To this end, the body has fully thrown its weight behind all groups and individuals pushing that having faithfully backed other zones to produce the President of Nigeria over the years and in different political dispensations, fairness demands that other zones should now reciprocate the gesture by supporting the South-east to produce the president in 2023.

At the event tagged; “The need for Nigerian Presidency from Southeast Nigeria come 2023”, the Igbo leaders challenged South-East politicians to stay focused and remain firm in demanding that the 2023 presidential tickets of their respective political parties be zoned to the geopolitical region.

In a communique read by the former chairman of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, the leaders rose from the meeting submitting that a Nigerian President of Southeast extraction will end agitations for a separate republic by the zone.

For them, such development will also usher in unity, peace and progress in the country, even as they urged political parties, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to zone their presidential tickets to the Southeast, as a demonstration of equity and fairness.

In warning that any to the contrary would make efforts at nation-building futile, the leaders in their resolution said; “A president from the Southeast will usher in unity, peace and progress in Nigeria. A president from the Southeast will guarantee the cessation of agitation by youths for a break-up of the Nigerian state.

“That our case is sufficiently self-evident and persuasive to jolt the conscience of the Nation to do justice to our people.

“That citizens of the Southeast, across all parties, must work in unity to achieve the objective of Southeast Presidency in 2023.

“That political leaders of the Southeast should not, under any circumstances, compromise the determination of the Southeast to get the Presidency of Nigeria in 2023.”

While cautioning that the people of the Southeast shall view with sternness, any South-easterner who works against this resolve, the Leaders said the time has come for other zones to support the South-east presidential project in the spirit of fairness and equity given the sacrifices made while backing others for the Presidency of Nigeria over the years.

The meeting was attended by prominent Igbo leaders, including elder statesman, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu; former Governors of Enugu and Imo States, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, and Chief Achike Udenwa; former Ministers, Senators, Clerics, traditional rulers, women leaders, and youth leaders among others.