Why Ndigbo Will Not Produce The President In 2015

There are many Igbos who fancy the notion that the race or the South East zone stands a chance at the presidency in 2015. They have missed the point.The presidency of Nigeria is never given on a platter of gold. It is a struggle and a race which is even more titanic than the fight to extricate Nigeria from the umbilical cord of Britain. The Igbos have not yet shown enough resolve to produce the presidency of the country like others before them have done. And there is nothing between now and 2015 to show that anything has changed in their so-called quest to produce the presidency of the country.

Now don’t get me wrong. If the presidency of Nigeria is based on merit and what determines who gets to the Aso Rock Villa is based on integrity, leadership quality and sound strategic thinking in state craft there are thousands of Igbos eminently qualified to run this country effectively. There is an array of Igbo intellectuals, technocrats and business moguls that if Nigeria were to be handed over to them for just six years they will readily transform this country into the Singapores , Taiwans and Japans of this world.

Given that Nigeria’s presidency like most other things in this country are not given on merit, but is actually fought for literally, the Igbos have not displayed enough muscle flexing necessary for the presidency. There is a Darwinian angle to Nigeria’s presidency. Already the South-south and the North are flexing their muscles ahead of the do or die battle for Aso Rock in 2015 to the extent that they don’t give a dawn about the proverbial grasses that would suffer when two elephants fight. Indeed the North and the South-south seem ready to see the country crumble in the battle to determine who gets what. Ndigbo, still suffering from the guilt mentality of the Biafran misadventure would rather prefer to be on the side line to see how the 2015 plays out against the two key protagonists most determined to occupy Aso Rock Villa.But there are many Igbos who support the race to join the battle for the presidency in 2015 but they are not as vociferous as their Northern and South-south counterpart.

It is by ‘fighting’ for the presidency that you get it, and not based on the superiority of ideas that a candidate or zone has. When the Yorubas fought for it, the country was forced to give it to them.

Remember, that despite the claim to national spread of National Democratic Coalition(NADECO), it was the intellectual think tank of the Yoruba race with its militant wing the Odua Peoples Congress(OPC) that paved the way for Obasanjo to emerge as president in 1999, even though many would like to think that his(Obasanjo’s) emergence was the result of the benevolence of the IBB and the North. From the day that the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by late Chief Moshood Abiola was annulled by the military junta, the Yorubas served notice that the rule of engagement in the country must change if Nigeria must remain as one country. Those who could read between the lines saw it and quickly cleared the road leading to the Villa for Obasanjo and the Yorubas to enter with their trade mark, ‘power shift’ caps that has now been replaced by the fedora cap of the Niger Delta.

When President Olusegun Obasanjo was leaving in 2007 after his failed bid to elongate his tenure he handed power back to the North with Umaru Musa Yar’Adua being the key beneficiary as he became the president of the country.Whatever anyone can say I believe strongly that it was the North that killed the third term dream of Obasanjo with their numerical superiority at the National Assembly. And they did it to put one of their own in the Villa. If you believe that they killed the third term bid for altruistic reason or for national interest it means that you believe that we eat bread out of the benevolence of the baker.

Given its role in killing the third term bid which was to clear the coast for the North to’enjoy’ the presidency for at least eight uninterrupted years, it is understandably incensed that it was cut short by the death of Yar’Adua and its effort to reclaim the seat in 2011 was futile.

Again, how did the boy without shoes get himself into the Villa? Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was nominated for the vice presidential slot to placate the south-south geopolitical zone that had shown the capacity to grind the country to a halt like the Yorubas. The zone sitting atop the largest oil reserves in the country had a reservoir of angry youths who had made oil exploration and exploitation difficult. They were ready to cripple the economy, little wonder Yar’Adua kowtowed to them and Jonathan has continued where Yar’Adua stopped.

My position is that Jonathan will get reelected in 2015 especially if the North fails to put its house in order. It will be a repeat of 2011 election. If the political parties throw up the same candidates that they presented in 2011 or their clones, Jonathan will be re-elected no matter his performance. Those who are keeping quiet while the country is being destroyed will pay the political price if they hope to benefit from the crisis they tolerated because it will make Jonathan look bad and incompetent. But I see Jonathan working for the actualization of Northern presidency in 2019. Igbos chance of getting the presidency is 2027 after the North has had its turn. There will be a huge moral burden on the North to hand over power to the South East by that date. Arthur Eze was right the presidency will come to the South East after the North. Eze spoke recently during President Jonathan’s official visit to Anambra State, where Jonathan inaugurated some projects and Eze pointedly stated that Jonathan deserves a second term like Obasanjo and Shagari before him. At the same occasion the Governor of Anambra State declared the support of the South East for Jonathan in 2015. Many Igbos disagreed with the position of the duo insisting that 2015 belongs to their race which will pitch them not only against the North but also the South-south. I look forward to seeing the Igbo presidency protagonists’ strategises for surmounting the North and the South-south in 2015.