A former minister of works, Adeseye Ogunlewe has said that the igbos will not be able to produce the next president of Nigeria because of their ‘lack of unity’.
Ogunlewe made this comment on Arise TV’s ‘The Morning Show’ programme on Wednesday. He added that said the Igbos must invest in party politics to stand a good chance at the next general election.
The 77 year old APC member said; “Another set of people that are appropriate, they are the people from the southeast but they have the problem of leadership,”.
“They are so endowed that they are spread all over Nigeria and they can gather a lot of votes, but they are too divided. An Imo person, an Enugu person, an Ebonyi man will not listen to themselves.
“They have the money. If they sit down and aggregate what they can offer, they have more money than almost everybody in Nigeria. But have you seen one person from the south-east that said ‘I am interested in the presidency, I will start to campaign all over Nigeria immediately, raise money for me?’ and influence the structure of the party?”
“You must invest in that structure, you must be able to determine who is going to be part of that structure because they are the ones to do the zoning, they are the ones to do the convention to pick a presidential candidate, so if you are not part of them, you are out. So if any easterner is interested, let him start now to invest in the structure of the party.”, he said.
When OBJ became president were the Yorubas united? No. He even lost election the whole of South West, yet other Nigerians voted for him. This concept of one region speaking with one voice is what has kept Nigeria underdeveloped. It is even antidemocratic. Is that not why today we have tolerated gross insecurity at the expense of the lives of innocent Nigerians because don’t want to offend the man on top. What we call unity in Nigeria is people keeping quiet even when their tribal man is wrong.
The ‘other tribes’ claim to know how to unite and get to power, so how has Nigeria fared in the hands of the president they produce?
Nigeria needs a president from a divided tribe like the Igbo where your brother will not cover your evil.
Let the Igbos come together and agree on who among them to support. Let the move begin now. Nobody all over the world can be
given the president on a platter of gold. They must build bridges of mutual understanding, compromise an forgiveness. There should be no overt or covert scheming by a section of the Igbo nation disparaging the Nigeria state no matter how provoked.
The scenario that occurred during OBJ’s presidency where 5 different Igbo Senate presidents were installed at different intervals didn’t speak well about their unity and ability to make compromise for the good of the Igbo nation. Here lies the suspicion on the part of other nationalities whether the Igbo nation is actually ready to lead Nigeria democratically. The Igbo nation has all it takes to rule Nigeria democratically.