Igbos will produce President in 2023, Okechukwu predicts
By Moses Oyediran, Enugu
Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu says come 2023, Nigerians would elect a President of Igbo extraction.
He spoke to journalists in Enugu on Monday on the call for a nationwide protest by the Global Coalition for Security and Democracy (GCSD) led by Omoyele Sowore and the poor response to the call for protest in Enugu state.
Okechukwu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who held a meeting with WAWA Farmers Association, said that the people of the South East region are aware that 2023 is the date they are waiting for to produce a President of Igbo extraction.
“Methinks, our people are aware that 2023 is the date we are waiting to elect Nigeria’s President of Igbo extraction. That’s why they didn’t participate in the protest.
“All one hear from the people l discussed with in the meeting with WAWA Farmers Association was their anger over the incessant killings like that of Rev. Fr. Paul Offu. Instead of protest, they are urging Mr. President to overhaul the security architecture and upgrade the security infrastructure. They cried that insecurity is hampering their farming activities,” Okechukwu quipped.
Asked why he thinks his people consider 2023 more important than the dire insecurity in the land, he replied that “they know that in democracy, street protest will neither alter the crisis on the ground nor provide solution in the short run; for gains made in democracy throughout the world history were evolutionary and incremental not RevolutionNow.
“Nigeria President of Igbo extraction is our goal, which street protest will not enhance. We are in constitutional democracy, no matter the challenges it is better to adhere to the cycle of elections provided in the 1999 Constitution.”
On Sowore’s detention, he appealed to the federal government to release him on compassionate grounds, adding that with time Sowore will come to terms that the huge gains democracy made in the United States and in particular New York, where he resides were made incrementally and cyclic elections not via revolution.
“In this evolutionary connection, it is more pragmatic for us to continue to support President Muhammadu Buhari, appeal to him to speed-up the development of critical social and physical infrastructure for peace and prosperity of our dear citizenry,” he added.
