A presidential hopeful and human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore has railed at the leader of the Pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, as well as other Southern and Middle Belt leaders for vehemently canvassing in support of the emergence of a President from the Southeast region of the country ahead of the forthcoming 2023 General elections.
Sowore, a presidential aspirant under the platform of the African Action Congress (AAC) described the call for an Igbo President as “a divisive strategy” aimed at destroying the unity of the country.
On Monday, Adebanjo who spoke at the International Conference Centre, Abuja reiterated calls for the presidency to be micro zoned to the South-East for equity, justice and fairness in 2023.
The Afenifere leader, said if the office of the presidency was based on “merit”, only candidates from the south-east would hold the office “till kingdom come”.
“When it is now the turn of the south and the south-east, they’re now propounding a new theory — the question of merit. If it was based on merit, till today, till kingdom come, the east alone will produce president.”
“I am saying all these to tell you that the question of lobbying, campaigning is a rigmarole. They know the truth,” Adebanjo said.
Reacting on Tuesday, Sowore while speaking during an interview session with the Arise TV, monitored by The New Diplomat, said though he respect Adebanjo, he disagrees with his call for a President of Igbo extraction in 2023.
According to him, decision to zone the presidency to a certain region is “undemocratic”, adding that it is only to “throw a bone at the Nigerian people”.
He questioned why Adebanjo and other southern and Middle belt leaders are discarding competency, capacity and leadership skills of several aspirants from other regions to “allocate” president for Nigerians.
In his words, “Some of them were the ones who started the massacre of IPOB members when they were governors. When one of them was the governor of Anambra state, particularly Peter Obi. So we cannot just discard the importance of great leaders, people who are competent. That’s what this country needs, you know, if I could invent an app that can govern Nigeria very well and make you have rules, electricity, make you have all the great things of life, good7 schools for children, and make the country safe and our infrastructures working, would you be asking whether that app is made by an Igbo man, or a Yoruba man, or made by an Ibibo man or a Tiv man, no, you just wake up and be happy. You know, I lived in a part of the US where I didn’t know the name of the mayor of my town. Because things were working… like some places where you don’t even know the governor of the state because it does not affect your micro stability as a human being.
“I met with Ayo Adebanjo, a night before, somewhere here in Abuja, and I was meeting him for the first time, I have a lot of respect for Pa Adebanjo. But I disagree with them on the issue of them sitting down in a non democratic meeting, and choosing for Nigerians who should be their next president based on the same problematic ethnic lens that which Nigeria has been destroyed up to this point.
“Listen, there are generations of Nigeria’s and we differ on how this is going to be handled. And I will say to you that those of us who did not participate in the Civil War, we have a different level of thinking that is different from those who participated in it. And those who were born in 1999, children of democracy, as we call them, who are now about 21 to 22 years old. They don’t think like the old people, what we tell them, and I don’t have any problem with old people is that, those old ideas should be allow to be allowed to rest. And they should not impose it or force it on several generations of Nigeria.
“So, want to think differently about how to move this country out of the doldrums. They have tried it before they’ve tried all kinds of constitutions. They went to several constituency assemblies, constitution conferences, and all these things were based on ethnic considerations. And it did not work. I mean, why do we continue to toe the line that has never worked for Nigeria? If you ask an average Nigerian when they enjoy this country anytime, they will probably reply when the country was doing well, economically, and not when it was governed by somebody from an ethnic group.
“And, you know, it’s very difficult to say that it was a time that Nigeria was doing well economically. But I saw somewhere that there was a time that the dollar was lower in terms of value than the naira, you know, 78 kobo used to be $1. But now we have 600 Naira to the dollar and we’re still digging into the role of ethnicity of nepotism of religiosity. So what if Muslims thought out tomorrow that they don’t want Christians which some of them are already doing, how do they resolve that.
“The important thing is for young people, and the old people to also respect the rights of young people who are 75% of the population of the country, who decide for themselves how they want their affairs to be run. All these old people who are naturally on the departure end of life, you know…should just let us be, you know, they must admit that they haven’t been able to solve any of the problems confronting Nigeria for 62 years.
“That’s how we found ourselves where we are, if we now sacrifice the opportunity that we have to have some young, vibrant, intellectually sound young people to govern Nigeria, or you go and assign or allocate to Nigeria, another president, who is probably an ex-convict, simply because this one is South-East, where are we going to find ourselves nowhere, and nobody wants to continue from where we are now, which is nowhere to another nowhere,” he added.
