2023: Placing Gowon’s support for Nigeria’s president of Igbo extraction

 

EMEKA NZE writes that General Yakubu Gowon’s statement backing the election of a Nigerian president of South East extraction come 2023 would usher in genuine national healing and integration which has eluded the country overtime.


Former military leader, Yakubu Gowon, last week said Igbo presidency is an acceptable idea. Gowon also said a leader from the southeast could have emerged sooner if only the PDP had stuck with its rotational presidency arrangement. 

The retired military general, who 
oversaw the Nigerian civil war, believes that since any region in the country can govern, so can the southeast.

He said: “If doing so will bring peace, it should be done; if the people so desire.”

Gowon told the BBC Hausa Service in an interview that not only is the idea welcome, but it would also have come sooner if the rotational presidency system created by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had been adhered to.

Gowon’s words also came just days before Tanko Yakasai, an elder statesman, recently said the southeast region can produce a Nigerian president if it gets the support of other parts of the country, especially the north.

This is unarguably a boost to the southeast bid to produce the next president of Nigeria from a former military leader of the country, Yakubu Gowon, to give green light for an Igbo presidency.

From the standpoint of many Nigerians, Gowon’s assertion on the need for a Igbo president in the country demonstrates a statesman who earnestly desires the best for his country.

This view reinforces the reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation (3rs) policy which his regime as a military head of state had declared at the end of the war in 1970 but could not implement before he was ousted in 1975 by another military regime of General Murtala Mohammed. 

Many Nigerians are of the view that Gowon’s recent statement is meant and would go a long way to heal the wounds of the past and usher in equity, justice and fair play in a country that has suffered national bruises inflicted by its leadership, past and present.

The Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria, Ostia Okechukwu, who officially reacted to the comment by General Gowon commended him for backing the South-east for the 2023 presidency.

Okechukwu said that the ex-Head of State’s position was inspiring.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain said, “I commend our elder statesman General Yakubu Gowon (retd.) for his support for power shift to the South-East in 2023.

“In league with others, one pledges that  a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction will engender unity, harmony, equity and natural justice in our dear fatherland.

“Indeed the goal of unity was achieved without doubt by this model of rotation of  the presidency from  the South to North – the Falae/Obasanjo Model – which not only featured in 1999, although governed the 2007 and 2015 presidential elections outcome.”

Okechukwu  said Gowon  had always  placed  national interest above pecuniary interest.

The VON DG said, “The rotation or zoning convention was founded by patriots who placed national interest above self-interest, not  the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party).  The PDP was just a beneficiary as the contest in 1999 was between the defunct AD/APP (Alliance for Democracy/All Peoples Party) alliance.

“Please one is not saying that the rotation convention is the only position best in the democratic horizon, but as Gowon noted, one of the best and a solution provider.”

He added,  “I stand with Gowon that rotation is the ligament that holds the various tendencies together, gives a sense of belonging, especially when all the geopolitical zones have highly  qualified men and women.

 “For the avoidance of doubt,  rotation was well perfected in 1999, with the Falae/Obasanjo model and since then, the presidency has rotated between the South and North.

“The South-East is the only geopolitical zone in the southern belt that has not presided over Nigeria since 1999 when the zoning convention commenced.

“It is with nostalgia that one  recalls when Olusola Saraki, Abubakar Rimi, Umaru Shinkafi, Adamu Ciroma, Alex Ekwueme of blessed memory and a host of other northerners and southerners like Ogbonnaya Onu, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu were persuaded not to run.

“These eminently qualified personalities were prevailed upon by Nigerian patriots to sacrifice their presidential ambitions for unity, peace and justice, hence the beginning of the zoning convention.”

Meanwhile, some potential southeast aspirants for the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria began moves to lobby the United States of America for their support for Igbo presidency.


The aspirants mainly of Igbo extraction at an event in Washington, D.C. said there was a consensus that zoning helped sustain stability in Nigeria’s nascent democracy.

Among the attendees was 2019 All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, now a member of Peoples Democratic Party Charles Udeogaranya.

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