2023: VON DG faults Igbo Elders, Insists on Igbo Presidency

Barely 24-hours after notable Igbo elders led by renowned Constitutional Lawyer,  Prof Ben Nwabueze (SAN), declared that Ndigbo preferred restructuring to the presidency by 2023, the Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, on Sunday insisted that the zone remained committed to the emergence of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction by 2023.

Okechukwu said the Igbo president in 2023 would in no small measure cushion sulking and wrinkling of hands over marginalisation.

The Igbo elders operating under the umbrella of Igbo Leaders of Thought (ILT), with Professors Nwabueze, Chinwite Ejike and Elochukwu Amuchiazu as leaders, had declared at the weekend that getting  the presidency was not the major priority of Ndigbo. 

They specifically rejected the offer by President Muhammadu Buhari to give Ndigbo presidency in 2023 if they vote for him in the 2019 presidential elections.

The President made the offer through the Secretary to Federal Government, Boss Mustafa who represented him at a rally of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Owerri, Imo State, recently.

Reacting to the development in a press statement made available to newsmen in Enugu on Sunday, the VON DG said that most of Ndigbo were keen on Nigeria president of Igbo extraction come 2023.

"Let's be pragmatic, otherwise Professor Nwabueze who is an eminent constitutional lawyer, should sincerely tell us how he intends to navigate the National and State Assemblies to amend the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to his taste?

"May I remind the Igbo Leaders of Thought that states like Ebonyi, Enugu, Lagos, Ogun, Plateau, Kaduna and a host of others voted against regions in the Abacha and Jonathan constitutional conferences. 

"Restructuring will only succeed when the weaker states and people are assured of basic needs of survival. This is the target of President Buhari's RRAP projects"

"The Igbo Leaders of Thought should think well, in the collective interest of all by being pragmatic and realistic. We crave to vote for President Buhari in 2019, so as to become president in 2023 and continue the massive critical infrastructural development he embarked upon.

"To be specific the Buhari's RRAP projects - roads, rails, agriculture and power - are targeted at 5,000 kilometers of federal roads, 5,000 kilometers of rail lines, 5,000 additional megawatts and self sufficiency in food production. RRAP is spreading gradually across the country and we want them in the South East," he said. 

Continuing, Okechukwu said President Buhari was quietly sourcing for solutions to end issues of killings, which was also raised by the Igbo statesmen, noting that the federal government was also worried and pained over the killings. 

"The killings cannot continue. I'm accordingly pleading with Nwabueze and co to join us in appealing to all geopolitical zones in the country, to support any Igbo man or woman of their choice in 2023. For by then, South East will be the only geopolitical zone in the South that had not been president since the zoning convention took off in 1999. This is more pragmatic than Utopian," he said.