Igbo Discord Over Jonathan

Ike Ekweremadu, deputy senate president

As the 2011 general elections approaches, indecision and internal wrangling could once again deny the Igbo nation their place in the nation’s polity
By Anene Ugoani, Enugu
Fresh facts have emerged over the failure of the five South-east governors in the as well as past and present political office holders to attend the Igbo summit held in Enugu on Monday, August 16, 2010, which endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan for the 2011 presidential race. In spite of formal invitations extended to them by the organisers of the event, only the former governor of Anambra State, Chukwuemeka Ezeife turned up at the Presidential Hotel, Enugu, venue of the event.
There were doubts over whether the summit would still hold as the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, had called it off, two days earlier. The reason he gave for the cancellation of the summit, was that the ruling People’s Democratic Party(PDP) had resolved the controversy over the zoning of political offices. Ekweremadu, the highest political office holder in the South-east region, under the present political dispensation, was one of the masterminds of the Igbo summit.
The Source, however, gathered at the summit, that the governors stayed away from the parley because they were divided over the choice of presidential candidate to support in the 2011 general elections. They had met at the Enugu State Government House on Sunday, August 15, 2010, a day before the Igbo summit. And fielding questions from reporters on whether the summit would hold or not following its cancellation by Ekweremadu, chairman of the South-east Governors Forum, Peter Obi, of Anambra State, said he was not in a position to comment on the issue because all his colleagues did not attend the meeting.
However, some members of the organising committee of the summit, who claimed to be in the know, told The Source that the governors, including past and present political office holders, distanced themselves from the event in order to feather their political nests. They alleged that Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State did not attend because he received intelligence reports that the summit was rooting for President Jonathan.
Governor Ohakim, according to sources, has a presidential ambition and consequently, is lining up behind former military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), who is said to have told Ohakim that he would do one term of four years in the event he wins in 2011 and then assist him to succeed  him(IBB) in 2015.
As for Ekweremadu, sources said he is dithering over whether to support Jonathan or not. “ He has one leg in the Jonathan camp and the other leg in the IBB camp. He wants to be Senate President in 2011. And to be Senate President, he has to support a Northern presidential candidate. If Jonathan wins, there is no way the President and Senate President can come from the South”, a source at the summit alleged.
The former governor of old Anambra State, Jim Nwobodo, and former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, were said to have shunned  the summit because they are pro-zoning and in the IBB camp together with former Abia State Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu. The trio are said to be slugging it out for the slot of vice-president to IBB. Senators Ayogu Eze and Uche Chukwumerije, were also alleged to belong to the IBB camp.
The Source also gathered that but for the nod the organisers of the summit got from the Presidency in Abuja, and former Information Minister and Ijaw leader, Edwin Clark, to discountenance the cancellation of the event by Ekweremadu, the Igbo summit would have been aborted as the summit was allegedly bankrolled by Clark.
Aside Ezeife, other prominent Igbos who attended the summit, included: the publisher of the Champion newspapers, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the convener of the summit and First Republic Minister, Mbazulike Amaechi, Anglican Archbishop, Maxwell Anikwenwa, Ezeigbo Lagos, Nwabueze Ohazurike, Emeka Ojukwu ( Jnr), former governorship candidate of the Accord Party in Enugu State in the 2007 elections, Ugochukwu Agballah, and Nwafor Orizu ( Jnr), a lawyer.
In his keynote address at the summit, Amaechi identified the most potent political issue in the country today as “ who will be elected President and Commander- in- Chief of the Armed Forces”. He urged the gathering to take cognisance of the political history of the country before taking a decision on the presidential candidate to endorse for the 2011 polls.
To sort of refresh the memories of those present at the summit, he said: “ The North has ruled Nigeria for 38 years and six months between Balewa, Gowon, Muhammed, Shagari, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, Abubakar and Yar’ Adua. The West has ruled Nigeria for 12 years and three months between Obasanjo ( the soldier), Shonekan and Obasanjo ( the civilian). The South- east ruled for six months by Aguiyi- Ironsi while the South-south had at that date ruled for two months.
“ In other words, if we consider that what is now called Bayelsa State was what was known as Brass Division of Eastern Region, it means that while the old Northern Region and Western Region have ruled Nigeria for 38 years and six months and 12 years and three months respectively, the old Eastern Region, has ruled for a total of 10 months.
“ In equity and justice, zoning or no zoning, it is the turn of the old Eastern Region to produce the next President. It should be left to the people of the old Eastern Region to internally decide whether the Igbo side or the non-Igbo side, should pick the slot at this time”.
But determined to sway opinion in favour of Jonathan, Ameachi cautioned that it was dangerous for the South-east region to back a Northern presidential candidate. He urged the people to consider the consequences of backing a Northern candidate and the candidate’s failing to win in the 2011 presidential elections. He also reminded the gathering that the North had once betrayed the Igbo.
“ There was an agreement during the Shagari\ Ekwueme era that at the end of Shagari’s second term, the NPN would sponsor an Igbo candidate for the Presidency. In order to stop the certain emergence of an Igbo Presidency, a North- inspired coup d’ etat, was staged on December 31, 1983. What guarantee or assurance do we have that history will not repeat itself?”, Ameachi queried.
He then canvassed the endorsement of President Jonathan, incorrectly asserting that no incumbent president in Africa has ever been defeated in any election. Perhaps to intimidate the people, he tried to paint a scenario where President Jonathan loses the election and the militants in the Niger Delta region, returned  to the trenches.
When Ameachi was done in seeking endorsement for President Jonathan, Agballah, the summit planning committee chairman, presented the working paper on which the decision to endorse the sitting president, was said to have been based. He expressed delight that the summit was eventually holding “in spite of initial distractions”.
And speaking without notes at the summit, Iwuanyanwu recalled how he made three failed bids to be president and how he lost huge sums of money due to lack of Igbo unity. He, therefore enjoined the Igbo nation to close ranks at this point in time and to endorse President Jonathan for next year’ s presidential  elections.
His words: “ The weak will always be defeated by the strong if there is no zoning. Without zoning, an Igbo man cannot be President. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo defeated Dr. Alex Ekwueme in 1999 because he was backed by the military.
“ Jonathan is completing the eight years tenure for the late President Yar’ Adua. The only person who will leave in 2015 is Jonathan. The Igbo should now show the people of the South-south that we are their elder brothers. This is the time to mend fences with the South-south”.
Addressing the gathering, Osita Okechukwu, a chieftain of the Congress for Progressive Change( CPC), slammed the South-east governors for “ decreeing” that no one from the South-east should run for the office of president in 2011. And he also flayed Ekweremadu for allegedly achieving nothing for the Igbo ethnic group while he was chairman of the Joint Committee on Constitution Review. “ He was bugged down with the non-essential issue of chairman and co-chairman. At the end, we came out empty handed,” he said.
Nwafor Orizu ( Jnr.), like Okechukwu, was livid with the South-east governors for their stand that the region would not vie for the office of president and vice-president, insisting that they did not have the mandate of the Igbo nation to exclude Ndigbo from the presidential elections in 2011. He said he attended the summit when he learnt that the five South-east governors would not attend.
Prior to the summit, former Information Minister, John Nnia Nwodo, had expressed displeasure over the summit when Iwuanyanwu broached the issue of endorsing President Jonathan at the Ohanaeze Ndigbo meeting held in Enugu on Saturday, August 14, 2010. He stated that he would not attend the summit because Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex socio-cultural organisation of the Igbo nation, did not approve of it. The former minister spoke about growing acts of indiscipline in Igboland and urged the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, to wield the big stick.
Alluding to the recent political activities of Ekweremadu in the South-east region, Nwodo told the gathering: “ We cannot have one thousand leaders at the same time”. Ohanaeze Ndigbo has since disassociated itself from the Igbo summit and it’s outcome. The Secretary-General of the organisation, Nduka Eya, said what was held in Enugu on August16,2010, was a political summit.
“ And you know we are not a political organisation. So, their stand has nothing to do with Ohanaeze. Ohanaeze is careful about what it says, that’ s why we are still consulting. I don’t think we should be in a hurry to take a position. These are people looking for something, and that is not part of Ohanaeze.
“ Our problem is how to unite our people so that we can stand and talk as a people, and that is what we are concerned about. So, what happened was organised by an interest group and you know that it will not be the last, because more groups will surely organise their own summits and reach similar decisions,” Nwodo stressed.
The endorsement of President Jonathan by the controversial summit raised a lot of dust at the second summit of the Eastern Human Rights and Pro-democracy Activists, held on Saturday, August 21, 2010 at the Ofuobi African Centre, Enugu. When the issue was raised, the Secretary- General of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties( CNPP), Willy Ezeugwu, described the endorsement of President Jonathan by the Igbo summit as embarrassing. “ How can they endorse someone who has not said he would run and who has not approached the Igbo for support?”, he asked.
The chairman at the human rights summit, Amechi Christopher Echukwu, however, told The Source that he attended the Igbo summit at the Presidential Hotel, Enugu. “ I was at the meeting, but it looked stage-managed. They worked from the answer to the question. And you can see in the key-note address, the convener said he wants Jonathan.
“ So, there is no way you can call it an agreement or consensus from Igboland. We have nothing against  Jonathan as a person. But I  believe that the Igbos can equally run. And there are many Igbos who are eager to run. I know somebody in the United States of America, Sam Nwanti, who is preparing to run. He will come back soon. So, to preclude all Igbos is very premature. And there were  no negotiations either with the North or South-south”, Echukwu pointed out.
Ezeife, the former governor of Anambra State, is vehemently opposed to the Igbo endorsing a Northern presidential candidate. He said the North instigated the Ikwere people of Rivers State, to seize the”Abandoned Property” of the Igbos at the end of the Nigerian civil war in1970. And that the Senate President, David Mark, then a soldier, was the chairman of the Abandoned Property Committee.
And while the controversy over the endorsement of President Jonathan by the Igbo summit is still raging, the five South-east governors rose from their meeting on Sunday, August 22, 2010, with the declaration that they would tarry awhile for all the presidential candidates to emerge before they would settle for the one perceived to have Igbo interests at heart. It certainly will not take long to know the governors preference as the 2011 general elections are merely a couple of months away.