…Says Senator Orji Kalu capable
A pressure group, the Coalition Of South East Youth Leaders, COSEYL, has called on the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to support the call for South East to produce the President of Nigeria in 2023.
The group, in a statement forwarded to Igbere TV, also enjoined Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos state, to jettison his rumoured plan to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari and support the emergence of a president of Igbo extraction.
COSEYL said everything short of electing an Igbo as president in 2023 would be regarded as a rejection and asking the Igbo to leave the country.
President General of the group, Goodluck Ibem, said COSEYL was ready to mobilize Ndigbo at home and in the diaspora, towards the realization of the dream which he said, was long overdue.
He said the Igbo nation, had, in the past, supported candidates from other zones to become heads of the Nigerian government, and produced leaders that helped to build the country.
The group stressed that Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, a former governor of Abia State and Senate Chief Whip, was capable of leading the country and should be supported to emerge president in 2023.
It also listed other prominent Southeast sons like Peter Obi, former Senate president, Ken Nnamani, former Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Charles Soludo, among others.
Meanwhile, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, former minister of Aviation, has backed the call for president of Igbo extraction in 2023.
He said doing that would help make up for the wrongs meted to Ndigbo in the past.
Fani-Kayode restated his position while responding to questions from newsmen at the premises of Anambra State Governor’s Lodge in Onitsha when he returned from a tour of some project sites with Governor Willie Obiano.
“I know that where I come from, there is a very large body of opinion now that is pushing for that. Ayo Adebanjo, who is the deputy leader of Afenifere, who speaks for us, made that position clear that as far as he he is concerned, the next president should come from the South East. And he spoke for us,” Fani-Kayode said.
The former minister, who insisted that the Igbo deserve a shot at the presidency, however, urged the leaders and people of the South East to work hard for it.
