ENUGU—IGBO leaders rose from the 2004 World Igbo Summit in Enugu yesterday restating their demand for the emergence of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2007 and threatened that they would sanction any Igbo who accepts the position of Vice President on any political platform in the next dispensation.
The summit also reviewed the political crisis in Anambra State and demanded the setting up of a judicial panel of inquiry to unravel circumstances surrounding recent destruction of public property in the state with a view to punishing the culprits, no matter how highly placed.
At a press conference shortly after the summit, President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and Chairman of the summit, Professor Joe Irukwu, said that the position of Ndigbo as it concerns 2007 was that the next president of Nigeria must come from Eastern Nigeria if the country must make the desired progress.
Said he: “Ndigbo have searched their minds; we have questioned the situation of the Nigerian experiment; we believe that Nigeria is one of the most highly gifted nations in the world. We believe that God has been too good to Nigeria and has given us more than many countries in the world have got, but in spite of this, we have not recorded much success as we ought to have recorded. In fact, we seem to be taking the backward step every time. “So, we say to ourselves, what is responsible for it? One reason is that one of the most enterprising ethnic groups in Africa is Ndigbo and as long as Nigeria puts Ndigbo down, Nigeria will not realise its full potentials. So, the greatest problem that Nigeria has as a nation is that it is not utilising fully the potentials of one of the greatest assets that it has and that is Ndigbo, and we are telling Nigeria to wake up and use the asset that it has in the Igboman.
“Another problem that has put Nigeria down is that we have a situation where you do not as a matter of corporate policy, as a matter of national policy, accept the concept of justice for all, we are not going to make progress unless all the ethnic groups in Nigeria including Ndigbo and others feel a total sense of belonging. Unless they feel that there is justice for all in Nigeria, the country is going nowhere.”
Irukwu whose emotion laden speech moved the audience at the news conference, further traced the root cause of the Nigerian problem to the formation of the federation, saying that “the federation of Nigeria came into existence because three autonomous regions –– East, West and North, based on the vision of the leaders of those three regions felt that it is better to have a strong country, a big country, and decided to get together and form the federation of Nigeria.” He said that if any of the three regions had opposed membership of the federation, the country would have been allowed to break up the way Cameroon was allowed to break up from Nigeria, pointing out that this was the beginning of Nigeria and that federating process anticipated the rotation of power, which had been the practice since 1960.
“But unfortunately, the rotation is not based on justice. In fact, the rotation is based on a system of injustice because one of the regions has had it for over 30 years. The other one, when the present incumbent finishes, the West would have had it for over 12 years. The East, which has the most dynamic group in the country and is the bedrock of the resources of the nation, has had it for only six months.
“We say to our brothers, search your conscience, think about Nigeria not yourselves; is it fair? The answer is that it’s not fair. Everybody we have talked to on the subject has no answer. So, we are saying to them, unless Nigeria stands on a foundation of justice for all, we are going nowhere. So, we tell them, this is the time of Eastern Nigeria and this is the time of Ndigbo,” Irukwu said.
He, however, warned that no Igboman should accept the position of Vice President from any political party in 2007, saying any Igboman or woman who violated the directive would be sanctioned. “We will sanction any Igboman who goes for the position of Vice President…We have a strategy and planning committee on the presidency and with the input of this summit, we expect that appropriate sanctions would be worked out against any culprit,” he said, adding that Ohanaeze believed in the rule of law, which must guide such sanctions.
On the Anambra crisis, Irukwu said the summit took a critical look at developments in the state and insisted that a judicial panel be instituted to fish out those responsible for the mayhem with a view to punishing them adequately.
“There is no justification for people taking laws into their hands and proceeding to damage and destroy government property. Government property belongs to the people, it belongs to the masses, it only takes a mad man to go and begin to destroy the property because ultimately, it is the people who will pay for it. So, we are saying that everybody in Anambra State should obey the law of the land. If anybody acts contrary to the law of the land and against the constitution, he should be dealt with in accordance with the law of the land,” he said.
