2023: For equity and fairness it’s turn of South East for president– Kogi Igbo leader
The president- general of Igbo community association Okene chapter Kogi State, Chief Joe Anikwe has said for fairness, justice and equity the 2023 presidency should be zoned to the south East
The Igbo leader who was reacting to the level of senseless killings and wanton destruction of properties in the country, said the insecurity level was heightened because of perceived marginalisation and victimisation of some tribal groups in the country.
He specifically said the Ndigbo is terribly marginalised and vilified under the current Buhari administration and treated as second class citizens inspite of the huge investments , intellectual and social contributions the Ndigbo have variously made to Nigeria.
In his words” what an average Igbo wants is fairness , justice and equity, not secession.Give us what is due to us, don’t marginalise us, don’t treat us as second class citizens in a country we collectively built. We are not slaves
” An average Igbo man is peaceful, hard working and highly enterprising, but in a situation that we are systemically marginalised and schemed out of the mainstream, it is highly disappointing and this can not be tolerated” he said
Chief Anikwe therefore urged both the ruling party and the opposition party to zone the 2023 presidency to the south east as it was done for the south west in 1999 presidential election.
On the frequent killings in the South East, the Igbo leader said the killings of innocent people must stop and the destruction of government facilities must also stop.
While commending the initiative of the federal government through the minister of interior, Ogbeni Aregbesola to broker peace in the South East, he however urged the ohaneze to leverage on this peace efforts to reach out to all stakeholders in the zone.
He however, called on the leadership of ohaneze to have a one- on -one dialogue with the Independent People of Biafra( IPOB )and Eastern Security Network ( ESN) to put an end to the current insecurity in the area stressing that ohaneze must see IPOB/ ECN as it’s children and not enemies.
The Igbo leader also advised president Muhammad Buhari to take the issue of restructuring of the country seriously and urgently and not to foot drag over the issue saying the country is burning already and the president- should not allow the nation to disintegrate during his tenure.
He also called on the south east governors to convene a peace meeting where all stakeholders in the zone including IPOB, ECN, MASSOB , Ohaneze and other relevant social cultural groups will meet and pour out their grivances to the representative of the federal government with a view to solving these problems.
End
