A business mogul, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, on Saturday condemned the marginalisation of the South-East geo-political zone by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in terms of appointments.
Iwuanyanwu said Buhari got it wrong by treating the region unfairly because a set of young men were agitating for the creation of the Biafra nation, and some Igbo leaders are calling for the restructuring of the country.
The Igbo leader spoke at the first session of the 22nd synod of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Ibadan Diocese, held in Ibadan.
He lamented that under the Buhari administration, the South-East was being marginalised despite its contributions to the economic growth and unity of the nation.
He said, “There is complaint from the South-East that the region is marginalised in this government. Anybody will agree with me that the South-East is not getting its fair share in this dispensation.
“The region played a role in the fight for independence, the growth of Nigeria’s economy and its unity. The Civil War ended not because the Biafra people were defeated but because the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe intervened. That is why the Nigerian government used the slogan of no victor, no vanquished.
“It is not right to deny the South-East people what is due to them. If anybody is agitating for Biafra Republic now, the Igbo leaders believe in Nigeria as a nation but they want restructuring. They want Nigeria to be restructured to what it used to be.
“When Nigeria was amalgamated in 1914 by Lord Lugard, a federating region had its own culture, system of government and technology. In Igbo land, we don’t marry many wives or have many children but elsewhere in Nigeria, some cultures allow their men to marry many wives and have many children. If it goes on like that, the South-East will be at a disadvantage because democracy is a matter of number.
“Buhari should go back to the document of the last constitutional conference where the South-East, South-South and South-West realised that only restructuring of the nation can guarantee its continuous nationhood,” he added.
The former presidential aspirant however commended Buhari’s fight against corruption which according to him, had exposed the wickedness of the Nigerian political class who enriched themselves with public funds while the citizens groaned in hunger.
He said, “The anti-corruption war has made awful revelation about man’s inhumanity to man in our society. How can one person be happy to collect millions of dollars belonging to poor people and keep it in his house to be spent with his family when people are dying of hunger? We must congratulate Buhari for this revelation.
“I want to observe that Nigeria has deteriorated and the decadence is incredible. Everything around us is corrupt. The institutions and even the judiciary is corrupt. The president has started the battle but the war is for all of us to fight.
“Many people have observed that the fight against corruption is sectional. We cannot blame Buhari for this because there are people around him who implement this policy.
“They should be held responsible for going after the opposition alone while keeping their own safe. We must have a new Nigeria where people will know that corruption is bad. That is the environment where we were born.” -PUNCH
