First, Ramadan Kareem! In this week's Saturday Tribune/Peoples Gazette column, I make a passionate case for an Igbo president in 2023 and suggest two people we should take a close look at.

Why Nigeria Needs to Elect an Igbo President in 2023
By Farooq A. Kperogi
Twitter: @farooqkperogi

You don’t promote unity by simply glibly mouthing off infuriating platitudes about unity being “non-negotiable.” You promote it through meaningful symbolic gestures to reassure estranged groups that they, too, matter.

Unity is promoted when conscious efforts are made to heal national wounds, to accommodate disadvantaged groups, and to make political concessions to restore faith in the promises of the country. The federal character principle, quota system, reservation of slots for students from educationally less developed states in federal institutions are examples of what sociologists call positive discrimination in the interest of the greater good of the society.

Nigeria also needs policies in positive discrimination in the political realm. That’s why I am a strong advocate for constitutionally enshrining power rotation at all levels of government in Nigeria in response to our peculiarities as a country that is riven by deep-seated primordial divisions practicing an American-style winner-take-all presidential democracy.

In 1998, the northern Nigerian political establishment, which dominated the national power structure, sensed the imminence of an irrecoverable national collapse as a result of the deepening sense of alienation that the Yoruba people felt on account of the unjustified invalidation of the June 12, 1993, presidential election that MKO Abiola was poised to win, which was made even worse by his death in solitary confinement for demanding the legal recognition of his electoral victory.

When constitutional rule was restored in 1999, northern politicians and statesmen came to a consensus that the only way to keep Yoruba people from breaking away from Nigeria—or from being perpetual thorns in the flesh of the body politic—was to concede the presidency to them. That was remarkably patriotic and far-sighted.

We have a similar moment now. The Igbo are almost in the same spot that the Yoruba were in in 1998. There is mass resentment among them. Several of them feel emotionally disconnected from Nigeria. And we all know why. Apart from the fact that they have never produced a president or vice president since 1999, Muhammadu Buhari has done an extremely poor job of husbanding Nigeria’s intricate diversity.

The sense of alienation that a vast swath of Igbo people feel now has made several of them, particularly their youth, susceptible to the murderous wiles of the mentally and emotionally disturbed mountebank called Nnamdi Kanu.

The cult of headless IPOB cretins Kanu has managed to build would only expand and might even transmogrify into something more sinister in the coming years if the estrangement of the Igbo persists. In fact, we can already see the steadily escalating foreboding of this in the current endemic violence in the southeast.

This is not unavoidable. It can be reversed with the election of an Igbo person as president. If we truly cherish Nigeria’s continuity as a country, we can’t afford to allow a huge section of it to feel so disaffected that it wants to break away from the union.

Power rotation is not “democratic” by the conventional conception of democracy, but there’s no universally applicable practice of democracy. That’s why the American practice of democracy is different from the British one.

American presidential election, for example, is not a one-person, one-vote democracy. That was why although Hillary Clinton won nearly three million more votes than Donald Trump in 2016, she wasn’t president. We have a right to fashion our own democracy that shows sensitivity to our particularities.

We will lose Nigeria if our democracy becomes an endless political Ping-Pong between the Northwest and the Southwest, as APC seems poised to make it.

You first need to have a country before you can dominate it politically. And you can’t have a country if a huge segment of it is forced to expend energies trying to get out of it because it doesn't feel welcome in it.

I have invested tremendous emotional and intellectual capital in Nigeria and want it to evolve and endure. My recommendation for the election of an Igbo person in 2023 comes from that emotional and intellectual investment. It’s fine to disagree with me, but I’d be interested in knowing how you intend to solve the problem of the alienation of the third leg of the Nigerian tripod.

In a 2020 book chapter, I wrote that Nigeria’s greatest misfortune has been that, in spite of its persistent, incapacitating fissiparity, it hasn’t disintegrated, but in spite of its apparent death-defying staying power, it hasn’t quite integrated, either. So, it is perpetually stuck in the twilight zone between death and life and between incipience and decay.

The originative trigger for the enduring structural and conceptional instability of Nigeria, I pointed out, is traceable to its congenital colonial birth defects. But it’s not sustainable to be in that state in perpetuity.

One of the ways to transcend it is to recognize the imperative of political inclusivity. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, this is more about symbolism than it is about substance. Electing an Igbo person as president would probably do nothing to improve anybody's lot—except, perhaps, the family and friends of the person elected to the office of president.

Goodluck Jonathan's calamitous 5-year presidency couldn’t even bring basic infrastructure like boreholes to his hometown of Otueke in Bayelsa State, yet southern ethnic minorities derived vicarious fulfilment from the fact that he was president. Buhari’s infernal presidency hasn’t improved the lot of people even from his hometown, but they take pride in saying one of them is president.

Human beings are animated by a multiplicity of impulses, including rational and emotional impulses, both of which are legitimate. When we turn on our rational impulses, we may ask: What would electing an Igbo man as president do to Igbo people? My answer is “probably nothing.”

But we are more than rational beings: we are also emotional beings. That's why people are invested in symbolism. Electing an Igbo person as president is merely a symbolic gesture, but it inspires a sense of inclusion in the minds of many people from that region; it serves as a symbolic conduit through which people vicariously connect with the government and with the country.

In other words, electing an Igbo person as president is first of all an end in itself before it’s a means to an end. Reversing mass resentment in a large segment of the national population through electing a president from there—like we did in 1999—is worthwhile, especially for a country that loves to say its unity and continuity are sacrosanct articles of faith.

Nonetheless, I am not suggesting that the reluctance to trust an Igbo person to be president because of the lingering memories of the Civil War are entirely misplaced. It took even the United States several decades before it elected a southerner as president after the region attempted to secede from the Union in the 1860s. Today, the American south is the most visibly “patriotic” region of the country.

Similarly, the imperative to elect an Igbo person as president doesn’t mean the rest of the country shouldn’t closely scrutinize the records of service, openness, and cosmopolitanism from the region’s contestants for president—like they should from other regions.

Of the people who have so far declared interest to run for president from the region, only two, in my opinion, are worth our time.

The first, for me, is Kingsley Moghalu. In a March 31, 2018, column titled “Moghalu, Sowore, and the Diasporan Presidential Challenge,” I wrote this about him: “Although I have no informed opinion on Moghalu’s tenure as CBN’s deputy governor, I have interacted with him since his relocation to the US in the past couple of years. He is, without a doubt, one of the best brains Nigeria has produced. He has an impressive mastery of the political economy of development and has written well-received books and articles on the subject.

“He also strikes me as a cosmopolitan, well-bred person who isn’t beholden to narrow, primordial loyalties, and who understands the complexities of Nigeria and the defining role leadership can and should play in managing national differences. He is energetic, passionate, and brims over with fresh, innovative ideas about governance and inclusive growth.”

The second is Peter Obi. In a March 25, 2022, article titled “Peter Obi: Applying to Be Driver of a Knocked-Out Car,” I mentioned that listening to his speeches has captured my imagination. He appears to have a handle on Nigeria’s problems, and what I’ve read of his record as governor of Anambra State inspires some confidence that he isn’t just a talker. I can’t speak to his cosmopolitanism and commitment to seeing all of Nigeria as his constituency. That’s up to voters to find out.

But I do hope that the “owners of Nigeria,” as we like to call the politically dominant members of the power structure, see merit in making political concessions to the Southeast in the interest of the national unity they routinely profess to cherish.

https://www.facebook.com/1531579738/posts/10227468950579375/?d=n

Not a good one.

Truth is a difficult article to sell; but Nigerians will have to live with the consequences of whatever rash decision they chose to make on this matter.

Akuko!....Nigerians need to elect reasonable and responsible Nigerian,and not those that has an identity problem.

Igbo President is cool.. but are igbos ain’t ready

Ekpa and his urchins said they’re suffering igbo governors and that igbos state government are losing money
Their Region.. so they believe they’re doing others

An igbos President will see them intensify their killings cannibalism and arson in the name of suffering the igbo President
Many of them lack sense .. because they’re jobless
Funny thing about this ekpa
Abakiliki boys is that.. they believe when they get Biafra .. all igbo properties will be shared among igbos

That’s if your papa get two houses .. them go give Una one collect one .. and dash to themselves wey no get any

I listen to one fool yesternight and his ekpa dreams .. and told him .. anambra no follow for that Biafra .. and he should tell em..

Like this I Dey bridge head .. people are moving with streets .. but major roads ain’t busy yet

About to roll
Ekpa boys please make una come stop us

Frigga13:
Igbo President is cool.. but are igbos ain’t ready

Ekpa and his urchins said they’re suffering igbo governors and that igbos state government are losing money
Their Region.. so they believe they’re doing others

An igbos President will see them intensify their killings cannibalism and arson in the name of suffering the igbo President
Many of them lack sense .. because they’re jobless
Funny thing about this ekpa
Abakiliki boys is that.. they believe when they get Biafra .. all igbo properties will be shared among igbos

That’s if your papa get two houses .. them go give Una one collect one .. and dash to themselves wey no get any

I listen to one fool yesternight and his ekpa dreams .. and told him .. anambra no follow for that Biafra .. and he should tell em..

Like this I Dey bridge head .. people are moving with streets .. but major roads ain’t busy yet

About to roll
Ekpa boys please make una come stop us

It seems you don't know much about the Igbo. Stop been wise by half. When BH were busy destroying Nigeria in early 2010s why did Nigerians still give Buhari, a northerner and Moslem the opportunity? If Igbo is given an opportunity, one of two things will happen: all the fears of non Igbo like yourself would be confirmed or you will be grateful for a new nation. Please support Igbo presidency in 2023 not just because it's so cool but because that would be just.

This Kperogi that doesn't brush daily should carry his stinking mouth away. Let's v good breath abeg.

I comrade Otunba Gbenga Buraimoh, a bona fide son of the soil from Igbęsa Ogun state, hereby declare my support for a presidency of an igbo extraction with the last drop of my blood.
And as for you Tinubu urchins and miscreants, your days of reckoning is at hand and you all will be dealt with thoroughly till your brains are reformatted to factory settings.

Gentlerespect76:


It seems you don't know much about the Igbo. Stop been wise by half. When BH were busy destroying Nigeria in early 2010s why did Nigerians still give Buhari, a northerner and Moslem the opportunity? If Igbo is given an opportunity, one of two things will happen: all the fears of non Igbo like yourself would be confirmed or you will be grateful for a new nation. Please support Igbo presidency in 2023 not just because it's so cool but because that would be just.

Igbo President will spread violence, criminality , evil and will spring war lords in the east

Nothing different will happen

Igbos are not ready for President

East will be worst than North east.

Common Governor .ekpa and his kids wan make East ungovernable and inhabitable.. so that igbos will lose money

Dem go bomb their own papa house and eat their sibling to get to any igbo as President to do their bidding and if they government react

They will use blackmail and intimidation like we’re seeing now

Imagine a region turning into an Aboniki balm where everyone just dey apply to relief their pains.

Chai, see how the mighty have fallen yakata

Frigga13:


Igbo President will spread violence, criminality , evil and will spring war lords in the east

Nothing different will happen

Igbos are not ready for President

East will be worst than North east.

Common Governor .ekpa and his kids wan make East ungovernable and inhabitable.. so that igbos will lose money

Dem go bomb their own papa house and eat their sibling to get to any igbo as President to do their bidding and if they government react

They will use blackmail and intimidation like we’re seeing now

Bro the way you reason is baffling. What's this?

helinues:
Imagine a region turning into an Aboniki balm where everyone just dey apply to relief their pains.

Chai, see how the mighty have fallen yakata

You mean no be small. Note: The downfall of a region is not the end of its life.

[s]

helinues:
Imagine a region turning into an Aboniki balm where everyone just dey apply to relief their pains.

Chai, see how the mighty have fallen yakata

[/s]