There is something profoundly troubling about the argument that Peter Obi should withdraw from the 2027 presidential race so that the Southeast can supposedly secure a “guaranteed” path to the Presidency in 2031. It is not merely unconvincing; it is myopic, uncalled for and politically insulting. After 27 years of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, the Southeast is being asked, yet again, to postpone its aspiration while another region occupies Aso Rock. On what basis? On the promise that somebody will remember the Southeast four years later? This is the kind of political arithmetic that expects the Igbo to contribute their votes, accept their marginalisation and then applaud themselves for being “strategic.” Since 1999, the Southwest has produced Olusegun Obasanjo and Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Presidents, and Yemi Osinbajo as Vice President. The North has produced Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Muhammadu Buhari as Presidents, and Atiku Abubakar and Namadi Sambo as Vice Presidents. The South-South has produced Goodluck Jonathan as President, while Jonathan himself had earlier served as Vice President to Yar’Adua. The Southeast? Not one President. Not one elected Vice President. Yet the proposed reward for this long wait is—wait a little longer.
This is where the argument collapses under the weight of its own logic. Why, exactly, should the Southeast help Tinubu secure another four years? What political debt does Nigeria owe the Southeast that has already been paid? The Igbo have participated in national coalitions, supported candidates from other regions, helped political parties win elections and repeatedly demonstrated that their political interests can extend beyond ethnic boundaries. They have helped others reach the summit of Nigerian power. They have supported the North. They have worked with the Southwest. They have played their part in keeping Nigeria’s political structure functioning. But when does reciprocity enter the equation? Why is political accommodation always presented to the Southeast as a moral obligation while other regions treat their own presidential ambitions as non-negotiable? The Southwest did not tell Nigerians to wait indefinitely after June 12. The North has never been shy about pursuing power when its turn comes. The South-South did not apologise when Jonathan became President. So why should the Southeast be the perpetual student of patience in a political classroom where everybody else is writing the examination?
The attempt to sell Tinubu’s second term as an investment that the Southeast can cash in on in 2031 is particularly naïve. Political promises in Nigeria are not Treasury bills. There is no instrument guaranteeing that a vote for Tinubu in 2027 automatically matures into an Igbo Presidency in 2031. Nobody can sign a promissory note on behalf of an entire geopolitical zone. Four years is an eternity in Nigerian politics. Alliances collapse, candidates emerge, parties realign and today’s political friends become tomorrow’s opponents. The Southeast would therefore be surrendering a real and immediate political bargaining position for a hypothetical future concession. And what are the proposed immediate benefits? Appointments, infrastructure and access to the Federal Government. But these are not gifts that a President distributes to favoured ethnic groups as Christmas hampers. They are responsibilities of government. Roads, railways, ports, power, federal appointments and economic opportunities are legitimate entitlements of citizens and regions within a federal republic. The Presidency should not be traded away for what government is already constitutionally obliged to provide.
There is also an inconvenient historical truth that the advocates of this grand bargain conveniently avoid. The Southeast has sacrificed presidential opportunities before—and perhaps none was more consequential than what happened in 1999 to the late Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu. Onu was not merely an aspirant making a casual bid for the Presidency. He was the presidential candidate of the All People’s Party (APP) and had emerged as a serious contender in the transition to democratic rule. But the political circumstances of 1999 were extraordinary. Following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, widely regarded as having been won by the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, there was enormous national pressure for the Yoruba to be given the Presidency as a form of political redress. In the interest of forging a broader opposition alliance, the APP entered into an arrangement with the Alliance for Democracy (AD). The resulting APP/AD alliance needed a single presidential candidate. Onu, despite being the APP’s presidential standard-bearer, sacrificed his own ticket and stepped aside, making way for a Yoruba candidate—Chief Olu Falae—to fly the joint APP/AD presidential flag in the 1999 election. It was an extraordinary political sacrifice: an Igbo politician relinquishing his own presidential ticket because the national mood demanded that the Yoruba be given an opportunity to occupy the Presidency after the trauma of June 12. The Southeast accepted that logic. It understood the national imperative and made room. But what happened afterwards? The Yoruba got Obasanjo. Later, Tinubu would become President. The North would produce its own Presidents and Vice Presidents. The South-South would produce Goodluck Jonathan, who had already served as Yar’Adua’s Vice President. The Southeast, which had once surrendered its presidential opportunity in the name of national accommodation, remained empty-handed.
The same period also witnessed the political sidelining of another towering Southeast figure, the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme, a former Vice President and one of the founding pillars of the PDP. At the party’s 1999 convention in Jos, Ekwueme’s presidential ambition was overtaken by the powerful national mood favouring a candidate from the Southwest. The argument was understandable in the circumstances: Nigeria needed to address the deep political wound created by the annulment of the June 12 election. But there is a difference between understanding a sacrifice and making sacrifice a permanent political obligation. The Southeast understood Nigeria in 1999. Who will understand the Southeast in 2027? Those who now propose that Peter Obi should withdraw are effectively asking the Igbo to repeat Ogbonnaya Onu’s sacrifice without offering anything remotely resembling the historical circumstances that justified it. June 12 is not occurring again in 2027. There is no fresh national democratic wound requiring the Southeast to surrender its presidential aspiration. There is simply an incumbent seeking another term and a Southeast candidate with a substantial national constituency seeking the Presidency. To equate the two situations is to stretch political opportunism into historical revisionism.
And then there is Peter Obi. The proposition that he should simply step aside treats his political movement as though it were a personal hobby that can be suspended and resumed at somebody else’s convenience. It is not. Whatever anyone thinks of Obi’s politics, his 2023 presidential campaign fundamentally altered Nigeria’s electoral conversation. He demonstrated that a candidate from the Southeast could build a national following and penetrate regions where conventional political calculations had assigned him little chance. His supporters are not exclusively Igbo, and his political appeal cannot honestly be reduced to regional sentiment. His case rests heavily on arguments about governance, public expenditure, institutional reform, accountability and the management of national resources. One may disagree with his prescriptions, his political strategy or his chances of victory, but dismissing his candidacy as something the Southeast should casually sacrifice is intellectually lazy. Tinubu is not entitled to the Presidency in 2027 merely because Obi might be persuaded to disappear from the ballot. Nor is Obi required to become the custodian of another region’s political comfort. If Tinubu wants another term, he should earn it at the polls. If Obi wants the Presidency, he should contest it. Let Nigerians decide.
Those dreaming of marching to Chief Emeka Anyaoku and persuading him to convince Obi to abandon his ambition should perhaps wake up. They appear to have mistaken an elder statesman for a political undertaker whose assignment is to bury the presidential aspiration of the Southeast. Anyaoku is a product of a generation that understands sacrifice, diplomacy and national responsibility; he is unlikely to confuse strategic patience with permanent political servitude. The proponents of this scheme may dress it up in sophisticated language about “realpolitik,” “political capital” and “generational strategy,” but underneath the grammar is a simple proposition: let the Igbo wait while somebody else governs Nigeria. That proposition deserves to be rejected without apology. The Southeast has been waiting since 1999. It waited when Ekwueme was edged aside. It waited when Onu sacrificed his presidential ticket. It supported other regions when they needed national coalitions. It watched Obasanjo complete eight years, watched Yar’Adua emerge, watched Jonathan rise from Vice President to President, watched Buhari return to power and watched Tinubu take the Presidency. Through all of this, the Southeast remained outside the Presidency. Enough.
The answer is not for the Southeast to become hostile to other regions; it is to stop behaving as though its own ambition requires somebody else’s permission. If the Southwest could insist on the moral force of June 12, the North could repeatedly negotiate its place in the presidential equation, and the South-South could produce Jonathan, then the Southeast has every right to say: our turn matters too. The proper strategy for 2027 is not surrender; it is negotiation from strength. Let Obi contest. Let the Southeast build alliances across the country. Let it speak to the North, Southwest, South-South and Middle Belt—not as a supplicant begging for charity, but as a serious political constituency offering a credible national alternative. And if other regions truly believe in the principle of fairness that they invoke whenever their own interests are involved, then they should demonstrate it when the Southeast’s turn arrives. The Igbo have waited long enough to be told that patience is a virtue. At some point, perpetual patience ceases to be statesmanship and becomes political self-denial. The Southeast does not need another lesson in sacrifice. It needs the courage to say that after helping others climb the ladder of power for decades, it is entitled to climb it itself.
