By Emmanuel Obe, Idu Jude and Andy Asemota, Cajetan Mmuta
Prominent Igbo leaders have taken a swipe at Kaduna state governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai for saying that the Igbo can not expect to have the presidency by threatening other parts of the country.

He also said the All Progressives Congress does not have a strong standing in the South-East to be given the 2023 presidential ticket of the party.

According to him, ‘’the Igbo cannot stay in their corner and say give me presidency or expect to get the presidency by threatening to break away from the rest of Nigeria.’’

He, however, advised the Igbo to actively engage other sections of the country if they had a serious desire to produce Nigeria’s next president.

el-Rufai’s remarks were made during a webinar organized by the African Leadership Group, with the theme, ‘Developing a Viable Nation’’.

The speech has not gone down well with the Igbo leadership who have taken turns to lambast the Kaduna State governor.

The Igbo apex socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, cautioned el-Rufai to restrain himself from making inflammatory statements capable of setting the nation on fire.

The group warned that any attempt to drag the Igbo or any ethnic nationalities into another civil war would be devastating and that the Igbo should never be taken for granted in the affairs of the country.

A chieftain of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and former Minister of Aviation during the First Republic, Chief Mbazuluike Amaechi, in reaction to el-Rufai’s speech, reminded the governor that a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction is not a project for the South-East geo-political zone alone, but for all the citizens of the country.

He challenged the Muhammadu Buhari administration on the imperative of conducting a plebiscite for people of the South-East zone to assert their stand on perceived injustice and marginalization of people of the zone.

According to Mbazuluike, “The people of the South-East geo-political zone are not working as a bloc asking for secession.
Rather, he argued, secession is a product of the agitation of many young men who were born during and after the Nigerian civil war, but who are no longer happy with the way Nigeria is treating them.”

This, he added, is why the youths are saying, ‘’if Nigeria will not treat as well as citizens of Nigeria, it should allow us to get back to Biafra which our fathers created.”

According to him, “Coming to the South-East as a body asking for secession; the normal thing when the secession issue arises if the situation gets serious, what a government does is to do a plebiscite and let the whole people of the area come out and say whether they want to break away or want to remain in Nigeria.”

On the issue of Igbo Presidency come 2023, the elder statesman said, “The president of a country is not the president of a state; so, a good president for the country can come from the weakest part of any federation.

“He is an individual, but the people of the country will vote for him on merit; it is not whether he is right or not.’’
On his part, the Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Chief Alex Ogbonnia, said, “For anybody to underrate Igbo political strength is making a great mistake.

“El-Rufai should know that Nigerians have an option, and they are very clear.  It is either we continue to grope in the dark in the situation of injustice and allow things to continue the way they are going now, or we reorganize and re-order ourselves and give justice and peace way in our political system and allow things to change.”

Also reacting to the governor’s remarks, President of Ndigbo Unity Forum, Augustine Chukwudum, said that el-Rufai should be ignored.

Chukwudum described the governor as anti-Igbo and an antagonist, who had exhibited hatred on the people over time.

“No reasonable human being should take the Governor of Kaduna State seriously. All we know is that he is a confusions.

‘’If you know him, he has never seen anything that will unite Nigeria or that will be of benefit to Nigeria.

“We the Igbo have demanded and said that in 2023, the presidency is the turn of the Igbo. And that is where we stand. We still maintain it.”

According to him, ‘’People must know the origin of why we started to agitate for Biafra. It is because of the injustice that we suffered. Since after the war, we have been neglected”, he reiterated.

Reacting to the comments, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Barrister Gabriel Ofodile, said the governor ‘’should see himself as a misfit meddling into affairs and issues that concern the Igbo nation.’’

“Ironically, Governor El-Rufai should see himself as a misfit talking, meddling in the issue that concerns the Igbo nation.

‘’I think the Kaduna State governor must seek the help of Igbo to write his name in gold among the best governors of his time,’’ he stated.

Ofodile noted that it was quite unfortunate that el-Rufai is disrupting all that Igbos invested in Kaduna State and warned Ndigbo not to lose sleep about the comments.
‘’He is just making himself relevant in the Nigerian polity,’’ he said.

The senior lawyer added that it was also very unfortunate ‘’that the governor in question is nursing the ambition of becoming the vice-president under someone from the South, an Igbo man,’’ adding that he was uneasy because of the odd favors the South-East for the presidency position.

The SAN, however, assured that the Igbo are ready to give Nigeria the best of president they have never had before.

Similarly, Barrister Ezeh Onyekpere described el-Rufai as an embattled man ‘’who is ruling a backwarded state’’.

He described the governor as the architect of the misfortune of the Nigerian state, ‘’having helped to install a government that has impoverished the people.’’

‘’I must let you know that the Igbo, irrespective of what every other Nigerians say out of hatred, remain the only ethnic group that has co-habited with every other ethnic group in Nigeria.

‘’And when we talk about marginalization of the Igbos, it is obvious that the Igbos have been marginalized in the Buhari administration.

‘’They are not wanted among the security chiefs, they are not wanted in the Aviation, the maritime as well as all the key appointments under this present administration that were put up by the likes of el-Rufai.’’

According to him, the current misgivings of this present administration which has crippled the Nigerian economy was caused by the same man who is pointing fingers at the Igbos, because he was a key player in installing the government.”

But for, Hon. Dr. Paul Okwudili Ezeh, it was the injustice meted to the Igbo that warranted the secession call by some young men.

Meanwhile, APC chieftain and Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has said that what Ndigbo are demanding is equity, natural justice, and a sense of belonging, and not to be judged by the activities of the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB).

Secession: History will not be kind to Buhari – CAN

He warned that the country must be careful during nation-building, otherwise, if IPOB is used as a trump card, to deny Ndigbo the presidency, which in his view is the turn of the South-East going by the zoning convention of the 4th Republic, it will be a great disservice to the larger Ndigbo who are genuine patriots.

His words: “Let me start by saying that one has tremendous respect for Malam Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State, and we are Buharists sharing a common political family.

However, on the issue of the threat to secession, may I once again restate unequivocally for the umpteenth time that Mazi Nnamdi Kalu and IPOB are in the fringe of the larger Ndigbo family.

“Majority of Ndigbo genuinely believe in one Nigeria and live and invest in Mubi, Dutse, Oron, Sagamu, Ugep and all the nooks and crannies of our dear country.”