The chances of the Igbo nation producing the next president in 2023 has shrunken with the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and the pattern of voting in last Saturday’s election.
This was the submission of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Ozo Dr. Victor Ike Oye, after doing a critical appraisal of last Saturday’s polls.
Dr. Oye, who made this declaration at a press conference on Thursday at Amawbia, near Awka, the Anambra State capital, said with the pattern of voting in the South East in the presidential and National Assembly elections on Saturday, the hope of the geopolitical zone producing the next president in 2023 has become hazy.
The South East voted overwhelmingly for the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in the polls.
The APGA boss blamed the zone for always putting their “eggs in one basket” and urged the Igbo to stop playing the politics of emotions and face what he called the “reality of the country’s monolithic political structure.”
“For me,” he said, “I believe the Igbo play more of politics of emotion than politics of pragmatism. They are not realistic; they always pander to emotionalism.
“Everything to them is all about a particular interest. Once they make up their mind to go towards a particular direction, that is where a sizeable number of them will go.
“So, I’m not optimistic about 2023 Igbo presidency going by what has happened now.”
He then urged his compatriots at the zone to come together as a people to discuss their common interest.
“Their common problem is unity,” Oye continued. “They cannot always come together and they are easily swayed by extraneous things as demonstrated in the last two elections of 2015 and 2019.
“Igbo should realign themselves and re-determine the options before them.
“From what happened last Saturday, the Igbo people worked as a team; but in the end, they lost. They won the battle and lost the war.
“They asserted themselves, showing they can make things happen. It shows that if they pool their resources together and work under one political party, they will make more foray.
“Ndigbo need to play at the national level and not ethnocentric regional politics, knowing that Nigeria is a monolithic political structure.”
