*We’ve reached out to other zones, says Ohanaeze
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has advised the Southeast to lobby Nigerians for the 2023 presidential slot.
But the ACF warned Nigerians against making wrong choices of candidates for the general elections.
The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, said it had already reached out to the other five geopolitical zones in the country.
ACF Chairman Audu Ogbe made the group’s position known at a press conference shortly after he led an ACF delegation on a condolence visit to the family of one of the founding fathers of the forum, the late Gen. Muhammadu Wushishi in Kaduna.
Ogbe said the ACF was in support of the declaration of bandits as terrorists.
He said: “We must beware of how we choose our leaders. If we make bad choices in 2023, Nigeria and Nigerians will suffer,” he said, adding that the forum will not endorse people that will not deliver.
“But zoning of the presidential ticket to Southeast is left for political parties to decide. We must be a united country. The Southeast should put up their team, move around and lobby. They have a genuine quest like every other geo-political zone.
“If they lobby, they will be surprised what Nigerians will say and do. For ACF, we will always show understanding to whatever is in the best interest of Nigeria.”
On the declaration of bandits as terrorists, Ogbe, a former Peoples Democratic Party national chairman and Agriculture minister, said, “it is a good decision to declare bandits as terrorists.”
He described as “barbaric,” the incident in Sokoto in which travellers were set ablaze in Sokoto.
Ogbe attributed the insecurity in the country to failure of the government to boost the economy, reduce the high cost of living, and stem unemployment.
“Unemployed youths now migrate to the city and mostly for lack of what to do, take into drugs and ended up taking solace in criminality. We encourage the security agencies to improve on their present efforts to end these senseless killings and all forms of criminalities,” he said.
Responding to the ACF’s advice to the Southeast, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, said: “There’s nothing wrong about it. Chief Ogbe also knows that our President-General, Prof. George Obiozor, has spoken with him about the need for the next President to come from the Southeast.
“We have also met the people of Southsouth and Southwest. So, we are moving about.
“We want to use this opportunity to remind the ACF that in 1959, the Igbo through Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe supported the North.
“Twenty years after in 1979, the Igbo through Alex Ekwueme, Kingsley Mbadiwe, and others also supported the North which saw the emergence of Alhaji Shehu Shagari as the president.
“Another 20 years after, the Igbo supported President Olusegun Obasanjo, and thereafter, we supported Umaru Yar’adua and later Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
“We have always been supporting others. Our simple prayer is for Nigerians to do unto the Igbo what we have been doing unto others.”
