2023: Igbo presidency tears southeast leaders apart as ex-SGF Anyim comes under fire
- Ohanaeze Ndigbo has lambasted a former Senate president, Pius Anyim, over comment on the Igbo presidency
- Anyim had said that only indigenes of the southeast who live in the zone would be allowed to vie for the presidency in 2023
- The apex socio-cultural group of the Igbos, however, said that Anyim is not qualified to make any statement on the next election
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The clamour for the southeast geopolitical zone to produce the next president of Nigeria has pitched leaders in the area against one another.
The Nation reports that a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Pius Anyim, had said that Igbos outside the shores of the southeast should perish the thought of contesting for the presidency if the ticket is zoned to the region in 2023.
Legit.ng gathered that the former Senate president said Delta and Rivers Igbo-speaking indigenes are not qualified to pick the presidential slot because they reside outside the southeast.
Source: Twitter
Reacting to Anyim's statement, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo lambasted the ex-SGF, saying that he has no locus standi to take such a position.
Dim Uche Okwukwu, the Ohanaeze’s secretary-general, stressed that Anyim was not qualified to speak for Igbo’s 2023 president’s project.
He described Anyim’s statement as retrogressive, provocative and divisive, alleging that the former Senate president was being sponsored by enemies of the Igbo to sow seeds of discord among the people.
Okwukwu, however, challenged Anyim to showcase his contributions for the advancement of the Igbo course despite all the high offices he had occupied in the name of Igbo.
He said:
“On the moral and ethical ground, he cannot talk about Igbo presidency for 2023 because he is a member of the PDP that supported Atiku in 2019 to become president. The question I ask Pius Anyim is if Atiku had warned (sic) the election, would he be talking about Igbo presidency in 2023?
“I, Dim Uche Okwukwu, led a delegation to endorse Buhari in presidential Villa in 2019. I am competent to talk about the Igbo president. What we are talking about is a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction and not a Nigerian president from the southeast.
“Southeast and southsouth divide Igbo into two. If Egbema is divided into two between Rivers and Imo, Ikwere is divided between Imo and Abia, Ohaji people are Ikwere people. So, what is his definition of Igbo? Is it Igbo of the southeast."
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that a United Kingdom-based Nigerian cleric, Apostle Vitalis Odumma, declared that the presidency won't go to the southeast in 2023.
It was reported that the Imo-state born preacher stated this while interacting with select journalists including a Legit.ng reporter in Abuja on Friday, December 19.
Odumma is famed for correctly predicting the emergence of Senator Hope Uzodinma as the Imo state governor in a prophecy he delivered as early as March 2019.
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Source: Legit.ng
