₦airaland Forum

Obiagu1:
Good moves.

This is a very good move.

[img]http://3.bp..com/_qFiyjwMlP0Y/SdwHjNkEF3I/AAAAAAAAAsM/vABYGeG7SNQ/s400/CheckmateD.jpg[/img]

I am glad many of my brothers are agreeing with me. An aggrieved majority is a dangerous majority. Go ask group of people who have been pushed too far.

A case for Igbo senate president

By Simon Nwoko
Thursday, May 12, 2011

With the 2011 general elections over, it is only natural that the debate and jostle over who gets what has began already. However, I must confess that two things have come as a shock to me. One is the debate over where the next Senate President is to come from. The other is the prevarications of the South East caucus of the House of Representatives over the issue issue as though we don’t know what we deserve and want.

It has always been the PDP pattern to share political positions in a way that if the Number One political office goes to either of the North or South, the Number Two office (Vice President) goes to the other region. That was why we had Olusegun Obasanjo (South) and Atiku Abubakar (North) as president and vice president respectively.

When the North produced the President in 2007 with the late Umaru Yar’Adua, the South produced Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan. The Senate President went up North, David Mark. Hon. Patricia Etteh (succeeded by Hon Dimeji Bankole) from the same South West became Speaker. Therefore, the current pattern where both the Vice President and the Senate President come from the North is just circumstantial. National interest and the need to stabilize the polity after the events leading up to the death of Yar’Adua his succession by Jonathan made it imperative to retain the status quo.

But it is gross mischief and insensitivity to the feelings of Ndigbo and indeed the South for anyone to now see it as a tradition that should subsist in the coming dispensation as it would amount to a miscarriage of equity to have both number two and 3 highest offices in the North. Another shocker is the prevarication by the South East caucus of the House of Representatives. Their press statement said either Speaker or Senate President as though we don’t know what we want.

The South West has returned to the opposition with the ACN. PDP has only one Senator from the entire South West, while Ndigbo delivered all but two senatorial seats to the PDP. It is therefore unthinkable that when asked to pick a political position after the North has taken the Vice President, that the South East (on behalf of the South) would jump the Number three position (Senate President) and pick the Number four office (Speaker). Anyone promoting such is Igbo Enemy No 1. It amounts to a grievous sabotage of Igbo corporate interest.

Some people may say, “What is in Senate Presidency?” Well, the answer is that it is the number three seat of power in Nigeria. The Senate President is also the Chairman of the National Assembly. He is a member of the National Council of State which is a critical body (but which no Igbo man has sat in since 2007). Section 53 (2) b of the 1999 Constitution also states that at joint sitting of the two chambers, “the President of Senate shall preside, and in his absence the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall preside.” If there is nothing special in it, why are other geo-political zones trying to expropriate it?

On another note, the misgivings over Igbo Senate presidency based on the instability that characterised the Senate during Obasanjo days is not tenable. It is not a valid ground to deny Igbo what is due them. Besides, the Senate was tempestuous between 1999 and 2007 because of Obasanjo’s determination to humiliate Ndigbo and also to have his puppets as the presiding officers of the National Assembly.

It is an open secret that the Villa funded the instability in the National Assembly and onslaught against presiding officers. By the way, the House of Reps has never been an Igbo Speaker since 1999, yet it has also had its own share of the tumultuous. Should we then say that the North West and South West are not qualified to ever ascend the office again?

Conversely, the Senate has known peace since 2007 largely because of the clement political temperaments of Yar’Adua and Jonathan as well as their respect for rule of law. In this case, the separation of powers which is a key pillar of democracy. When we talk about the stability of the Senate since 2007, we often also fail to give credit to Deputy Senate President who is also an Igbo man. He did not emulate the treachery as his predecessors who were the conduits of Villa-made political tsunamis in the Senate.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/freekick/2011/may/12/freekick-12-05-2011-003.htm

I see the goat enjoys seeing this.

It is not like his life will be improved

No education and he is still a goat.

Abagworo:
This whole drama is disgraceful and makes me kind of ashamed of all Igbo leaders and their apologists here on nairaland.The best option should have been just supporting an upright man that will improve Nigeria irrespective of his ethnicity but they would not listen.2ndly zoning and sharing of whatever should have been a thing of the past.Competence should be the order of the day.These are the reasons I love Buhari.If only 10 Igbo men are the most competent let them occupy all.


It is hypocritical to kill zoning and still come back to request for zoning.

Shut up fool!

Buhari is a bigger bigot.

Jonathan was the lesser of two evils.

jason123:
Mister, and you think APGA is the political party that can liberate the South or SE and SS I keep wondering why you guys keep mentioning the SS in all this Bruhaha

We are talking about SS as Ukwuani (Chyz's group), Anioma, Ika, Ndoni, Andoni, Ekpeye etc. Any Igbo clan found in the S/south.

Politicians, contractors besiege Okorocha’s country home

BY CHIDI NKWOPARA

OWERRI – Ogboko, the country home of Imo State governor-elect, Mr. Rochas Okorocha, has become a political pilgrimage centre of sort  since he was announced winner of the gubernatorial election last weekend.

Vanguard investigations revealed that scores of politicians and contractors have been visiting Ogboko on courtesy calls to congratulate Okorocha.

It was also gathered that a good number of those who had been milling around Ogboko are supposed chieftains of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who would not want to completely lose out in the emerging political structutre.

Vanguard equally gathered that the leadership of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria in Imo State has already paid a courtesy visit to Ogboko in Ideato South Local Council Area.

Led by Mrs. Rubby Emele and Chief Enyinnaya Onuegbu, Chairman and Secretary, respectively, ALGON said it deemed it necessary to demonstrate loyalty and support to the incoming state administration which it will undoubt.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/05/politicians-contractors-besiege-okorochas-country-home/

Dede1:
Any Igbo person who does not understand that Nigeria today and of years to come is all about Nigeria/Biafra civil war and its outcome is a bloody fool. I can not believe the fact that some Igbo extractions are showing frustrations based on their erroneous political hedge on Nigeria. I had never wished Nigeria anything but disintegration.

You are right. . .

bashr4:
its too early for this lets wait till its over and all the post are assigned before we judge, theres always a counter plan.

I already stated ministerial positions are not good enough. We have to stand our ground. If not, we will fall for anything.

bashr4:
at the end of the day rascality pays ,the gentleman nature of ndigbo only made us losers in this animal jungle called nigeria.

That is why there is no friends in politics, only interest. . .

Ileke-IdI:
EzeUche, keep jumping to conclusion before you even get to the party. sogbo?

Spearkship or whateverit has has NOT even been granted to the SW or North. Whatis your problem?

So what if the SE eventually gets it? What will you now say? SS/SE Union ko.

No. . . I never trusted many of the groups in the SS. I just kept mute during the election period, because my fellow Ndigbo were in full support of this man.

reindeer:
It is easy, GEJ will betray anybody.
If the hausas look more intimidating, he'll simply sell off the igbos.

bashr4:
interesting

Maybe this was a wise prediction.

People are more afraid of the Hausa than the Ndigbo.

bashr4:
this wont help both SE/SS i think we are blowing this out of proportion after all our only loss will be mockery from the north and i told you so from the west , the ijaws have more to loose if the east is not politically strong am sure he is aware of this.

I don't care about the SS. They don't care about so why should I start to care about them. Let his fellow SS leaders come out and voice their opinions on these affairs. Until then, it is Igbo first and Igbo only.

ChinenyeN:
hmm. . looks like someone seems a bit threatened by a simple discussion of ancestry and kinship. Or, maybe it would be better if I just asked: what exactly is your problem? Why are you being so cynical over this simple discussion of ancestry and kinship? Do you think people are out to annex you or something? Na simple question o, no vex.

If you talk more like this, then I will not have a problem with you.

jason123:
Since when did the Igbo have access to sea?? Is there any history that was recorded about Igbos and the SEA Do Igbos have a "sea-like" tradition?? Please enlighten me!!! What about the Ijaws in Portharcourt??



https://www.nzuko-ndigbo.org/images/maps/igbo_land_map.jpg

As YOUR map is shows, Igbo does not have access to SEA except you want to BULLY the locals!!!!


THIS IS THE TRUTH!!!!

It has already been explained in this thread.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-500126.1824.html

Who said Igbos are afraid of water?

We are not landlocked and dammmn it, we will resist any attempts to do so.

DO YOU HEAR ME?

And anyone who complains, well that is not your concern. Worry about you Warri problem, before the Urhobo and Ijaw get upset with your small ethnicity again.

Lets see how Jonathan will run this nation, when his benefactors are not giving him support.

The North does not really want him as president.

The SW could care less.

Now lets see if he lose all SE support. Who would he go to?

I say let him go to the waiting hands of hyenas in the North. He is not our concern.

And the COAS should resign and allow a member of another group run this position, because we Igbos are not protecting him.

Ngodigha:
What matters most is the development of the region. To Ndigbo here, would you choose meaningless political offices to the development of your region?.

Those positions are not meaningless. I take it you do not understand politics, because the Speaker is not a "meaningless" position.

How do you think development is going to happen without government support?

bashr4:
ezeuche calm down lets wait till after 6 months at least before drawing conclusion. we just have to go back to the drawing board while jelously holding tight to the economy cause that will be their next line of attack

It is always Ezeuche calm down. Ezeuche calm down. I have been hearing that for months now. Everything will be alright they say.

NO, everything is not ALRIGHT.

If Igbos thought like me, we would not be in this mess. You all wanted to act like friends of the SS. After they backstabbed us before. (Exception Efik/Ibibio)

Calculia:
The South-South & South East need each other. Jonathan need the South East vote to be President and that is why he was successful. Even if the name Azikiwe and Ebele were handy. This is politics and the game is about positioning. The South East/ South South should start positioning themselves for 2015. Correct me if am wrong or is the Presidency going North to the Hausas again.

What does the SS have that the SE need? The answer is nothing. We have arable land. We have industries. We have oil. There is nothing the SE needs from the SS. As long as these non-Igbos do not claim PH, we have access to the sea, which is paramount

The trust between the SE and SS disappeared when Goodluck backstabbed. us. I wont be fooled twice into joining some dammmn SS.

alj_harem:
what an analysis sad really sad

a majority group now a minority

How can a majority be a minority, when we still have the people?

Revenge is very sweet. Just look at what happened to Ken Saro-Wiwa and Adaka Boro.

Calculia:
Ultimately the South East and South South Political zone is the crucial ground to gain for any potential party aspiring for national significance or president.

Why should we care about the South-South? One of their own has betrayed us.

The only SS that matters is the Igbo SS.

The other minority groups in the SS can fend for themselves like the rest of the minorities in Nigeria have to do with groups like the Hausa.

Will Igbo support for Jonathan, PDP be in vain?

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://www.independentngonline.com/DailyIndependent/Article.aspx?id=33502

I am going with APGA. Any party that will unite the Ndigbo and serve our interest has my support.

It is time for us to only care about ourselves.

https://www.nzuko-ndigbo.org/images/maps/igbo_land_map.jpg

jason123:
STFU!! You KING OF TRIBALIST!!!

Look you inferior swine, I have no patience for your peace loving words.

That weak backstabbing person does not deserve my respect.