If the recent report credited to the leadership of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ Forum (SMBLF) calling Governor Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa a betrayer is true, it is most unfortunate and uncalled for. Senator (Dr) Ifeanyi Okowa is the governor of Delta state on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Granted that he hosted the meeting of the Southern Governors’ Forum sometime in 2021 where the forum agreed that the presidential ticket of all the political parties should be zoned to the southern part of Nigeria for the 2023 general elections. The Southern Governors’ Forum comprises 17 governors whereas the Northern Governors’ Forum comprises 19 governors.
The North has a greater number of local government areas than the South. Since PDP presidential primary election was decided based on one delegate per local government area, what magic did the leadership of SMBLF expect Governor Okowa to have performed in order to ensure that a southern aspirant emerged as the candidate of the PDP?
Since the voting during the presidential primaries was done by the mode of open-secret ballot system, how did the SMBLF know that Governor Okowa didn’t give the entire 28 votes from Delta state to any of the southern aspirants, especially, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state, who was an aspirant in the presidential primaries?
Now that PDP had produced a northern candidate, did SMBLF leadership expect Governor Okowa, who is now the vice presidential candidate of the PDP, to play anti-party activities by either defecting from the PDP or staying put in the party while working against the party because it produced a northern candidate?
Did SMBLF expect Governor Okowa to support Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) even as a PDP governor just because Tinubu is a southern candidate? Or did they expect him to have rejected the vice presidential candidacy in order to support either Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) or Asiwaju Tinubu of the APC?
Did they expect Governor Okowa to have rejected the vice presidential candidacy while expecting northerners to accept the vice presidential candidacy position from Tinubu, Obi and other southern presidential candidates?
The leadership of Ohaneze Ndigbo and Ndigbo all over the world must rally round Governor Okowa as Atiku’s vice presidential candidate and ensure that they vote massively for the ticket to win. Okowa is a bona fide Igbo man.
There is no difference between Ifeanyi from Delta state and another Ifeanyi from Imo state. Artificial boundaries like states of origin or geopolitical zones must not confer superiority to Igbo men from the South-east and inferiority to Igbo people outside the South-east.
Delta state once produced the president-general and secretary-general of Ohaneze Ndigbo in the persons of late Ambassador Ralph Uwechue and Col. Joe Achuzia (rtd), respectively. Dr Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is an Igbo woman from Delta state but married in Abia state. Are those saying that Okowa is not a “core Igbo man” also implying that late Uwechue, Achuzia and Okonjo-Iweala are half or fake Igbo?
Like I pointed out in my previous articles, Peter Obi can never win the presidential race on the platform of the Labour Party even if he resurrects the late premier of the northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and makes him his running mate.
Peter Obi is a good candidate for the presidency of Nigeria, no doubt, but he should understand that there is no way he can dislodge the PDP and the APC to snatch the presidential seat from these two major political parties.
If President Muhammadu Buhari could not win the presidency on three previous occasions before 2015, just because he was only popular in the North, I do not see the magic that Peter Obi can do to win in the whole of the South and the North in the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the Labour Party.
The popularity or perception of a messiah that Peter Obi has now pales into insignificance to the greater perception Buhari had before he became the President of Nigeria in 2015. If perception and popularity are enough criteria to win a presidential contest, former U.S.A President Barak Obama would not have contested the presidency of America on the platform of a well-established political party like the Democratic Party.
Even in America, whose democracy is over 200 years old, no candidate can win the presidential race except on the platform of either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party no matter how good and popular the candidate might be, otherwise Reverend Jesse Jackson would have become the President of America even before Obama happened.
Atiku Abubakar is the most popular politician from the North in contemporary Nigeria. There is no way most northerners would prefer to vote a southern presidential candidate even if a northern Muslim pairs the ticket.
Atiku almost defeated incumbent President Buhari in 2019. Atiku is far more cosmopolitan and broad-minded than Buhari. The ordeal of the Igbo nation in this present regime of President Buahri would never be experienced under Atiku’s presidency.
Peter Obi should work for the Atiku/Okowa ticket. When Atiku becomes the president, he should compensate Obi with the position of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
It is better for Peter Obi to negotiate now and get a plum position in Atiku’s government than bearing the mere appendage of a former presidential candidate; if he goes ahead to contest the election, definitely, he won’t win.
For Ohaneze, the vice-presidential candidacy of Okowa presents a test case for the leadership and they must avoid falling into the temptation of segregation and alienation among Igbo by referring to Igbo people outside the South-east as inferior Igbo. Otherwise, someone like Ambassador Uwechue, who once presided over the affairs of all Igbo worldwide, would be turning in his grave if Ohaneze and the entire Ndigbo deny Okowa the maximum support to become the second citizen of this country.
Maduako writes from Owerri, Imo state via [email protected], 08061562735
