MAGAZINE STORY: 2015: IGBOS AND THE SEARCH FOR A POLITICAL PLATFORM

Igbos have made a strong desire to contest the 2015 Presidential Race. But they are lost,confused and uncertain , wondering which of the major political parties in the country can offer its platform to transform its expectations to reality.

THE CLARION CALL

From Owerri to Nkpor, down to Okigwe, up to Ishiagu, the vibration is becoming the same.

Cross Section of Igbo Leaders

Igbos has defined its next political destination in 2015.  And it is determined to ensure the reality of this mission by producing the next President of the country.   In otherwords, they are not keen in supporting President Goodluck Jonathan for a second term.

For sometime, one has observed a renewed zeal by some Igbo leaders who have come up in the open to say the time has come for Igbos to produce Jonathan’s successor. The latest to join the clamour is the former Civilian Governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu.

Kalu who spoke a public lecture organized by Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU), Ile Ife,  said it is overdue an Igbo is elected President, decrying a trend where the nation has been unfortunate to have reluctant leaders.   

Former Anambra State Governor and now senator, Chris Ngige recently added his voice to the quest of a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction. This is also in addition to calls by several groups, including the National Igbo Frontier which advocated that the time has come for Igbos to produce the nation’s President.

Speaking to this blog recently, founder and national president of the group, Comrade Chiedu Uzodinma, said Igbos cannot afford to continue to be the weeping child of the Nigerian statecraft.  ‘The time has come. It is more than overdue. Igbos should produce the country’s next president. President Jonathan should reciprocate that massive support he got from Igbos in the 2011 elections and tell his Ijaw kinsmen to support an Igbo for the President. It is preposterous if Jonathan says he will contest again in 2015’ Uzodinma said.

   POLITICAL PARTY PLATFORM

The search for a political platform has been identified as the undoing of Igbos to produce the country’s next president. Several political pundits argue that if Igbos fails to secure a virile political platform to aid the successes of the presidential dream, it can militate against the success of the Igbo Presidency Agenda.

 They contend that it is a major factor that has become the undoing of the Igbo Presidency. And this postulation is anchored on the fact that none of the major political parties in the country has shown the disposition to accommodate the Igbos in its desire to produce the next president of the country.   

Rufus Okoye, a political analyst contends that the PDP is the only political party that has the national spread to catapult an Igbo to Aso Rock come 2015. With 23 State Governors, and majority of its members dominating the National and State Houses of Assemblies, it is the only party with the might and size to take Igbos to its desired political destination.

 But Mr. Innocent Onyeukwu, Publisher of Online newsblog  Innonews,  in his article Igbos And The Search For Political Advancement  wrote:

 ‘The  ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where most Igbo leaders have converged  seem to be averse to give Igbos greater participatory role in the party  to enable it advance its cause as a people.

The (PDP) party has not offered the much needed opportunity for Igbos to actualize their political desires. Despite the enormous contributions of Igbo sons and daughters to the growth and development of the party, the PDP have continued to reward Igbos with political disappointments.  The party has at all times disgraced Igbo leaders and has shown little or no visible sign to offer Igbos  its might and size to actualize its motive of producing the country’s President.

First, in 1999, it disgraced one of its founding fathers and a great son of Igboland, Dr. Alex Ekwueme at the 1999 Jos Convention rejecting his presidential candidature in preference for an ex military non democrat like General Olusegun Obasanjo.

The party used the position of National Chairman which it zoned to the South East to make a caricature of great sons of Igboland. The first victim was Chief Vincent Ogbulafor who was forced to quit when he was caught in the web of a deadly conspiracy spawn by anti Igbo conspirators in the party.

Next was Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, who was shoved aside as national chairman of the party on the floor of the Eagle Square, Abuja just to satisfy the inordinate ambition of the party’s emperor!   He was also removed for advocating reforms that could usher in internal democracy into the party’

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the Congress For Progressive Change (CPC) are other political platforms that can offer Igbos the desired political platform to succeed.  According to the ANPP, it offers that required platform Igbos require to get the presidency. The party’s national Chairman, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, told Igbo Leadership Forum, World Igbo Congress in the United States that the ANPP offers Igbos the right platform to get to the presidency.

Onu said ‘The Igbos in politics should look beyond the ruling party.  We should study the political terrain very carefully and take decisions which are in our own very best interest.  We should always remember what our ancestors taught us, that when answering the call of nature, we should go with two pieces of sticks.  If one falls by the wayside unnoticed, the other can still be relied upon to perform its duty when the need arises’.

He continued ‘The Igbos need an alternative political party that has a national reach and is not perceived by the general public as a regionally based party.  The All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, is that political party which the Igbos should embrace so that they can always make a viable choice.  The Igbos need to diversify, as an insurance against the unknown and the unseen’.

However, political pundits argue that the ANPP is a regional political party that lacks the capacity to single-handedly produce a President for the country. With three States namely Zamfara, Borno and Yobe in its kitty, mainly in the North, the party is said to have weak political structures especially in the South.

‘The ANPP might be an Igbo friendly political party, but it cannot single-handedly catapult an Igboman or any other candidate to the presidency’ says John Iwueke, a political analyst.

He noted that much as the ANPP has undergone internal political surgery in recent times, it alongside other political parties cannot alone make anyone President.

Aside the ANPP, APGA, CPC and ACN have been described as regional political parties that cannot make an Igbo President.  This is based on the religious and tribal leanings of these political parties which despite its claim to be a political party with national colouration, it has lacks the wherewithal to dethrone the ruling PDP.

 For instance, APGA is control of two States in the South East namely Imo and Anambra, the ACN, is more or less dubbed a Yoruba political party with strong and domineering presence in the South West, while the CPC has only a State in the North Central.

‘They are loose disparate political interests. This makes the Igbo Presidency project a mirage on the platform of any of these political parties. The ray of hope is an alliance of these political parties’ says Fred Nnamdi.

Alliance For An Igbo President?

The Alliance of political parties in the country has been identified as the major factor that will ensure the success of Igbo Presidency Agenda. But the disposition of the political parties for an alliance just to aid the success of Igbo Presidncy remains a mirage. This has been attributed to the reason why the proposed merger/coalition of opposition political parties in the country has not seen the light of the day.

Last March, the ACN, CPC, and ANPP entered into talks for an alliance aimed at wrestling power from the ruling PDP in 2015. Though the modalities for the merger are yet in place, sources said the alliance may take off sometime in 2014, which is the INEC prescribed time frame for the take off of such merger.

However, concern are being raised if the alliance will work in the interest of an Igbo,moreso now that the North insists it is its turn to produce the country’s next President.

The PDP waves off the alliance pact saying it will never succeed. Olisa Metu, the party’s national Publicity secretary described the alliance a huge joke that has never succeeded in the history of the country