When Igbo leaders threw all their political eggs into President Goodluck Jonathan's basket, and convinced their kinsmen and women, home and abroad, to do same, I was apprehensive. My worry informed my July 27, 2010 article, "Igbo and Jonathan's presidential ambition," published here, almost a year ago, long before he became the de facto presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).



The support was total, so much so that the five Southeast governors met in Enugu and unilaterally, without the people's consent, disqualified themselves from the presidential race. That was long before their colleagues from the South-south, the President's zone, bought into the project.

As if to amplify their resolve in order not to leave anyone in doubt of the political pathway they had chosen to tread, they shut their door in the face of every other presidential candidate shopping for a running mate. Such steadfastness was unprecedented in the country. But it was a huge gamble, full of risks, particularly coming at a time nobody was sure that he would even win the nomination of his party. The drums of opposition were still resonating against his ambition in the North, and loudly too.

In the article, I asked a simple question. What was in the unprecedented support for Jonathan for the Igbo nation and her people who have, perhaps, suffered more marginalisation than any other group in the country? Will the support be reciprocated?

And my conclusion was simple; "I am not against Jonathan being President beyond May 29, 2011. But if he must be with the help of the Igbo, then it must be discussed."



Not even the humiliating ouster of Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo, former chairman of the PDP, who sharpened the "mainstream politics" argument as reason why the Igbo must embrace the party, dampened the enthusiasm for Jonathan in the Southeast. Instead, they followed through with their promise during the general elections. Southeast voted 97 percent for the President. He got 5,090,140 or 22.93 percent of PDP presidential votes, the second highest after the South-south zone. This is despite the fact that the Southeast is the only zone with five states and the least populated, courtesy of fraudulent figures churned out by dark forces bent on making the Igbo a minority group in the name of census.

Beside Jonathan, the PDP scored about 90 percent in the National Assembly elections and won three governorship seats. There was no governorship poll in Anambra and PDP lost in Imo.

It was therefore natural to expect that in this dispensation, Jonathan and the PDP would compensate the Igbo with a political position that would be worth their sacrifice. But there are indications that that may not happen without a fight.

The first sign that the Southeast will be forced to still hold the wrong end of the political stick which President Olusegun Obasanjo handed them when he was leaving office in 2007 was when the President refused to ensure that the PDP chairmanship returns to the Southeast even after many Igbo leaders met him over the matter after screening and short-listing candidates.



Having delivered their votes to the PDP, expectations were high that the Southeast will either produce the Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The North Central presently occupies the position of Senate President - David Mark, while the Southwest produced the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole as decreed by outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007.

But the Southwest made a conscious effort to go back to their opposition cocoon. The result is that the PDP got only five out of 66 available House of Representatives seats and one seat out of the 18 senatorial seats in the zone.

As the Southeast National Assembly caucus noted after a recent meeting, "These numbers provide few choices in the Southwest for recruitment of quality leadership that will ensure national stability," because as they further noted, "It is conventional that a presiding officer must enjoy a good measure of parliamentary caucus support."

So, even if the North Central retains the Senate Presidency because of the performance of the PDP in the zone, what will be the justification for retaining the Speakership in the Southwest?



But PDP has a record of compensating failure. One of the conditions for emerging the party's presidential candidate in 1999 was ability to deliver one's zone to the party. Dr. Alex Ekwueme, former Vice President, and founding member of the PDP fulfilled delivered the Southeast to the party. Obasanjo lost the ballot even in his own polling booth but the military wing of the party handed him the ticket.

Some political jobbers have introduced the combustible element of religion into the equation. If a Christian retains the seat of Senate President, then the Speaker must be a Moslem, they argue. But that is a calculated attempt to ensure that the Igbo does not get the Speakership, knowing full well that there is not likely to be a Muslim lawmaker in the National Assembly from the Southeast.

Besides, until Dimeji Bankole became Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Ette, a Christian, was the Speaker and was removed for reasons other than her religion. And as members of the Southeast caucus argued, "In the Second Republic, Dr. Joseph Wayas and Chief Edwin Ume Ezeoke, both Christians from the South were Senate President and Speaker respectively even when Ekwueme and Chief Adisa Akinloye, both Southern Christians held the positions of Vice President and National Chairman respectively." Even now, in the House of Representatives, both Bankole and his deputy, Bayero Nafada, are Muslims.

Equity demands that one of the two National Assembly top jobs should be zoned to the Southeast. Insisting that the Southwest should retain the Speakership is tantamount to the Yoruba eating their cake and having it. It is ironical that the man who is pushing it is the same man who lost his polling unit to the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

But one pertinent question needs be asked. Why is President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, the fabled friend, in-law and neighbour to Ndigbo not lifting a finger for them?

Those who cautioned Ndigbo not to put all their eggs in Jonathan's basket last year argued that if the President lost the battle, then the region would be out on a limb. The sad thing is that even with his victory, a victory made possible by the sacrifice of Ndigbo, nothing seems to have changed; Ndigbo may have laboured in vain.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201105100715.html

aljharem3:
When Igbo leaders threw all their political eggs into President Goodluck Jonathan's basket, and convinced their kinsmen and women, home and abroad, to do same, I was apprehensive. My worry informed my July 27, 2010 article, "Igbo and Jonathan's presidential ambition," published here, almost a year ago, long before he became the de facto presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).



The support was total, so much so that the five Southeast governors met in Enugu and unilaterally, without the people's consent, disqualified themselves from the presidential race. That was long before their colleagues from the South-south, the President's zone, bought into the project.

As if to amplify their resolve in order not to leave anyone in doubt of the political pathway they had chosen to tread, they shut their door in the face of every other presidential candidate shopping for a running mate. Such steadfastness was unprecedented in the country. But it was a huge gamble, full of risks, particularly coming at a time nobody was sure that he would even win the nomination of his party. The drums of opposition were still resonating against his ambition in the North, and loudly too.

In the article, I asked a simple question. What was in the unprecedented support for Jonathan for the Igbo nation and her people who have, perhaps, suffered more marginalisation than any other group in the country? Will the support be reciprocated?

And my conclusion was simple; "I am not against Jonathan being President beyond May 29, 2011. But if he must be with the help of the Igbo, then it must be discussed."



Not even the humiliating ouster of Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo, former chairman of the PDP, who sharpened the "mainstream politics" argument as reason why the Igbo must embrace the party, dampened the enthusiasm for Jonathan in the Southeast. Instead, they followed through with their promise during the general elections. Southeast voted 97 percent for the President. He got 5,090,140 or 22.93 percent of PDP presidential votes, the second highest after the South-south zone. This is despite the fact that the Southeast is the only zone with five states and the least populated, courtesy of fraudulent figures churned out by dark forces bent on making the Igbo a minority group in the name of census.

Beside Jonathan, the PDP scored about 90 percent in the National Assembly elections and won three governorship seats. There was no governorship poll in Anambra and PDP lost in Imo.

It was therefore natural to expect that in this dispensation, Jonathan and the PDP would compensate the Igbo with a political position that would be worth their sacrifice. But there are indications that that may not happen without a fight.

The first sign that the Southeast will be forced to still hold the wrong end of the political stick which President Olusegun Obasanjo handed them when he was leaving office in 2007 was when the President refused to ensure that the PDP chairmanship returns to the Southeast even after many Igbo leaders met him over the matter after screening and short-listing candidates.



Having delivered their votes to the PDP, expectations were high that the Southeast will either produce the Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The North Central presently occupies the position of Senate President - David Mark, while the Southwest produced the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole as decreed by outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007.

But the Southwest made a conscious effort to go back to their opposition cocoon. The result is that the PDP got only five out of 66 available House of Representatives seats and one seat out of the 18 senatorial seats in the zone.

As the Southeast National Assembly caucus noted after a recent meeting, "These numbers provide few choices in the Southwest for recruitment of quality leadership that will ensure national stability," because as they further noted, "It is conventional that a presiding officer must enjoy a good measure of parliamentary caucus support."

So, even if the North Central retains the Senate Presidency because of the performance of the PDP in the zone, what will be the justification for retaining the Speakership in the Southwest?



But PDP has a record of compensating failure. One of the conditions for emerging the party's presidential candidate in 1999 was ability to deliver one's zone to the party. Dr. Alex Ekwueme, former Vice President, and founding member of the PDP fulfilled delivered the Southeast to the party. Obasanjo lost the ballot even in his own polling booth but the military wing of the party handed him the ticket.

Some political jobbers have introduced the combustible element of religion into the equation. If a Christian retains the seat of Senate President, then the Speaker must be a Moslem, they argue. But that is a calculated attempt to ensure that the Igbo does not get the Speakership, knowing full well that there is not likely to be a Muslim lawmaker in the National Assembly from the Southeast.

Besides, until Dimeji Bankole became Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Ette, a Christian, was the Speaker and was removed for reasons other than her religion. And as members of the Southeast caucus argued, "In the Second Republic, Dr. Joseph Wayas and Chief Edwin Ume Ezeoke, both Christians from the South were Senate President and Speaker respectively even when Ekwueme and Chief Adisa Akinloye, both Southern Christians held the positions of Vice President and National Chairman respectively." Even now, in the House of Representatives, both Bankole and his deputy, Bayero Nafada, are Muslims.

Equity demands that one of the two National Assembly top jobs should be zoned to the Southeast. Insisting that the Southwest should retain the Speakership is tantamount to the Yoruba eating their cake and having it. It is ironical that the man who is pushing it is the same man who lost his polling unit to the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

But one pertinent question needs be asked. Why is President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, the fabled friend, in-law and neighbour to Ndigbo not lifting a finger for them?

Those who cautioned Ndigbo not to put all their eggs in Jonathan's basket last year argued that if the President lost the battle, then the region would be out on a limb. The sad thing is that even with his victory, a victory made possible by the sacrifice of Ndigbo, nothing seems to have changed; Ndigbo may have laboured in vain.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201105100715.html

The truth is bitter and you have just said it. Even the South-South (GEJ's immediate constituency) will not give him a near-total support without pre-conditions and sadly my people will continue to learn the hard way if they don't have a common position before throwing their whole weight behind one man's ambition. The Yoruba's and Northerners have people in both the PDP and opposition parties and they have other forums where they can assess their progress and reconcile issues. The south-south has agreed to support their son but on concrete conditions. I have not seen a 2nd Niger bridge and our federal roads remain prostrate. Nothing to suggest that voting GEJ is worth it. Now if this administration was less corrupt by half one can say that there is something to look forward too and console oneself on regional infrastructural neglect but there is nothing. A few may argue that there are a good number of Igbos in federal appointments but my question remains (1) How has this number of appointees (meriting or not meriting their appointments) helped in consolidating solutions to common problems? (2) The highest ranking Igbo in government remains the deputy senate president (no. 5 man in the country) whose sole interest is controlling the politics of his state from Abuja, how does that help us? (3) The only political parties with south eastern origin has been allowed to collapse into the PDP or disappeared into nothing, I am talking about APGA and PPA. Now the western AC merely merged to form an opposition but still retains its identity within the larger ACN and other parties UPN and SDP remains as an alternative to doing business with the rulng party while many others are still in PDP. If a beautiful girl offers herself cheaply to be screwed by a man who perhaps couldn't believe his luck at the ease at which his lame offer was accepted then she should not blame anybody when the scandal unfolds because others can never take her serious.