BY RALPH EJIMKONYE
The South East Coalition For Good Governance, SECG, has said it will unveil eleven persons from the South East zone, which it considers “ripe to vie for the presidency in 2023, accepted in the northern geo political zone and other zones in the country”
The SECG had announced recently that for a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction to emerge in 2023, Igbo must put forward a candidate that is acceptable to the Northern region.
National Co- coordinator of the group, Dennis Ejiofor in a telephone interview, said it has begun discussions with “ key and strategic leaders in the North to embrace and accept the fact that it is the turn of the South East to produce the nation’s President in 2023, in the spirit and tenets of rotational presidency.
“We must embrace the fact that the North because of its numerical strength and size remains decisive in which zone produces the President of the country in 2023.
“This is an inescapable fact and we in the South East must drop whatever misgivings we have against the North and embark on constructive engagement with them on the issue of Presidency, particularly now that the South West and South- South zones have also indicated interest in the contest in 2023.
“We have shortlisted Igbo first eleven and we have begun subtly to market them outside Igboland. We will narrow down the number to five or less, after we had concluded our first phase of our marketing not just in the North but across other zones in the country.
The SECG noted that it is not arrogating to the North so much powers to choose who governs the country but maintained that the “North politically, is a strategic factor in deciding who becomes President of Nigeria and can never be wished away
“We are not giving so much concession to the North alone as it concerns the issue of an Igbo becoming President in 2023. They have always played major roles to determine where the President comes from.
“Obasanjo rode on their support in 1999 to become President even when his South West region had rejected his aspiration. Jonathan had a smooth sail to the Presidency in 2011, but when the North shifted support to Buhari in 2015, Jonathan failed to get a second term.
“We must understand that the North and South East were allies in the first and second republics. That alliance was truncated in 2015 when the South West somehow, realigned with the North to support Buhari to become President, while we in the South East supported Goodluck Jonathan from the South South.
He admitted that the two major political parties, the All Progressive Congress, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, remain the surest route for an Igbo to be President in 2023.
Ejiofor continued “We have two major political parties in the country and one of them is a more conducive and safer vehicle that will take an Igbo to Aso Rock in 2023 if we get our acts right.
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