By Gideon Njoku
The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has accused a number of politicians of Igbo origin of working against an Igbo becoming Nigeria’s President.
IPOB says, surprisingly, it is the same people who always worked against the Igbo, that are today angling for that position.
For that reason, IPOB said in a statement signed by its Spokesman, Emma Powerful, that it would never support Igbo Presidency in 2023. It called those Igbo lobbying to be President in 2023, betrayers, who would sell the Igbo for a pot of porridge.
IPOB said the Igbo betrayal by the Igbo began in 1999 when prominent Igbo politicians backed the candidacy of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, against that of their kinsman, the late Dr Alex Ekwueme, former Vice President under the Shehu Shagari Government, even though they belonged to the same political party. It named the Senate Chief Whip, a former Abia Governor, and Chief Jim Nwobodo, former old Anambra Governor, as among those who dumped Ekwueme for Obasanjo during the PDP Presidential primary in Jos. Obasanjo went on to win the Presidency.
IPOB, also, said that the same scenario played out in 2019 when the PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, picked former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, as his running mate. IPOB said PDP members of Igbo extraction, including Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, worked against the ticket.
For those reasons, IPOB said it would never support the Igbo for the 2023 Presidency.
In 1999, however, this magazine recalls that it was a deliberate decision of the Military Government in power then, under General Abdulsalami Abubakar, to give the Presidency to Obasanjo to compensate the Yoruba for the death of the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993, Presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola, in Military detention.
But IPOB insists it was a betrayal of the Igbo against the Igbo. Part of the statement reads:
“We cannot support anybody that will kill us. That will mean the end of the Biafra emancipation, as you know.
“It is still fresh in our minds what transpired at Jos convention when the late Dr Akex Ekwueme contested for the the candidature of the President of Nigeria, under PDP in 1999.
“Then the likes of Jim Nwobodo, Orji Uzor Kalu and virtually every other Igbo delegation at that convention voted against him. These Igbo men sabotaged Igbo Presidency then. What has changed since 1999 that will make them now come out to shamefully clamourfor the same Igbo Presidency they publicly rejected in 1999?
“Similarly, when Mr Peter Obi, in 2019 was contesting with Abubakar Atiku as his running mate, Governor Dave Umahi and his co-travellers in conspiracy business did not support, or campaign for him, despite being in the same political party -PDP.
“We are surprised that these people shouting President of Igbo extraction today, but sabotaged their own people yesterday, think we have forgotten, they also think others will support them when it is their own time.”
A number of Igbo organisations have accused IPOB of deliberately working against the emergence of an Igbo as President in 2023.
