2023: This is the time to give Igbos sense of belonging , acceptability ,understanding – Ahmed Buhari

 

.Says Anyim Pius have all it take to lead the nation

 

Mr Ahmed Buhari, was the former Presidential Candidate of the Sustainable National Party (SNP), (an African Union Ambassador) who doubles as One of the Spokesperson of Senator Anyim Pius Campaign Organization.

In an interview with Arise Television, he bares his mind on the the issue of “Engaging the North on Power Shift and the clarion call for a president of Igbo extraction come 2023…Clement Nnachi monitored the interview…..Excerpts

From your contribution  so far, you are supporting Igbo Presidency, you mentioned at Least Two Names Senator Orji Uzor Kalu and Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, Mazi Sam Ohabunwa, Mr Kingsley Moghalu and former Governor Peter Obi. Who’s your favour ate?  Who are you backing, Are you campaigning for Senator Anyim Pius Anyim or you have a short list of persons from the south-east ?

 

In all Honesty  I mentioned about five Names when I made my earlier contributions. Those are the people I think that have actually presented themselves. Looking at everybody critically and judging them based on the presentations they have made so far, I am tilting towards Senator Pius Anyim who in all honesty have been able to speak about the issues .

I remember when you asked him about Restructuring, I like the way he presented it in a way that everybody will be willing to pay attention to it, to  see how some of the Committee Reports that we had in the last few years can actually been restated or if the people  will want to have another Conference to sit down and talk about our Unity or how we want to run our Space , he will be willing to Let that happen.

Senator Anyim also spoke about issues like when we build those Policies as Government, at what point did they sit down with the Electorate with the people/masses and say these are the plans that we have

Let the people have their Contributions into those  policies that are going to be developed, so that at the end of the day you are developing policies that are going to be favourable to the people and not necessarily policies that are seen as government  where officials sit down in the room and in most cases disconnected from the full yearnings of the Nigerian people .

I think those things are the kind of things that resonated with him, I think those things are the kind of things that  we have been yearning for that will give an opportunity for many young people, old people, those in government ,those not in government to sit down and say you know that  this are the way forward, this is how we want to go and let those policies be shift around  the true yearnings of the Nigerian people and not what a few people are contrived in the room.

 

Your preferred Candidate Senator Anyim Pius Anyim is 60 years old. Does that play a role in your decision? Where do you stand on this issue that has become  topical of the age of the next President of the country, since there is a correlation between age and health

 

Absolutely, I remember when I was contesting for President of Nigeria , a lot of people in my bracket at that time were saying that there was an age limit to who becomes President or who doesn’t become President .

 

I remember I said that Age is not a function of good leadership regardless of your age, it doesn’t necessarily matter  that will determine how well you are going to present good leadership to the people. However I think that a younger person will be more energetic and more ready to try New ideas and be more in tandem the huge percentage of the people who actually fall below the age of 40. That is not to say that Pius Anyim at 60 years is old as a matter of fact.

Judging from the names of people that were mentioned earlier ,most of them are in their late 50s, some of them in their late 70s. It is important for us to actually understand that what will actually make you successful as a leader is your willingness to have the right thing in place. It is not One Man Business , it is a Government and if you are not willing to put the right hands ,work with you then you are going to heading towards failure .

Another thing that is important to look at, I think one of the biggest clause of a Leader we are going to be looking forward in having in 2023 is the ability to hire and fire .We have experienced Seven years of the current administration having the inability to fire or reshuffle Cabinet especially when we don’t see results that we expect.

There was a Piece I read not too long ago by a Newspaper Columnist Mrs. Koluko Ugbala, titled “IGBOPHOBIA” was that Igbos want too much in Nigeria, I had also the opportunity of having an extended conversation in trying to throw up some of those prejudices of Igbos.

 

I just want to run a few of them by you .Example some people are arguing that an Igbo person cannot be president ,Igbos try to destroy Nigeria during the Civil war and because of that they don’t ever have the right to aspire to run in Nigeria

 

Another thing she said in her Column was that she has heard people say that Igbos are very clannish ,also that Igbos are too mercantilist in that if you allow an Igbo man ,let us not wake up one day and see that certain Assets have been sold off.

 

Ethnic bigotry what some people would call tribalism , and she try to knock each of those arguments one by one, I feel that kind of attitude is the way certain Leaders in certain parts of the country have been dismissing the idea of Igbo Presidency. Is interesting to see you somebody from the North is championing Igbo Presidency ,you are probably in the minority coming from the North .

What really is the problem Northerners have with Igbos Presidency?

 

I think  just on the surface level , there are lots of Igbos that we grew up with in the North. I am from Kontagora in Niger State and we have thousands of Igbos living there .We have Igbos who have been turbaned titles in the North .We have Igbos who run our economy for us in the North. We have Igbos  who work with us to make things happen in the North .

 

Unfortunately, when we come to the political space we now twist everything around the place just as we even want it to favour us .I think if we want to go back to where all these is brewing from, I think it has to come from the Civil War.

 

I think the Igbo people haven’t healed and that is why when they are talking they are very emotional about things that have happened .I think as a country, it’s about time given them some sense of belonging , acceptability ,understanding that in every good there is evil ,and in every evil there is good and I am an Hausa man and am going to tell you clearly that among my people there are good guy and bad guys very bad guys.

 

The same way in the south, the same way in the east and anybody who is not able to look at it from that angle is not being sincere because as we speak with you now, we have certain Igbo people who have not just made us proud in Nigeria but also outside the country who also fly the Igbo flag as high as possible and there have no shame in it .

However sometimes we over-flog the issues where this person is coming from and I think it has a lot to do with Civil war, and I think telling people that we think that war happened and the Igbos lost, I think every body lost we set ourselves many years backwards.We are still trying to heal we have not healed.

 

If we must be honest with ourselves it’s about time we start looking at what we must do to ensure that this very large ethnic group that spreads across not just within the space of Nigeria but across the World, who have done tremendous things as well are given that space on the table , so that they can be proud to call themselves Nigerians.

 

I see people like Senator Pius Anyim who I saw a Clip from one of the visitations he met with a certain Yoruba  Leaders who was reigning abuses on a particular ethnic group Senator Anyim said to the man very clearly that I agree that certainly all of those things have gone wrong ,how do we move forward, that Is why am here .

What approach do you think the Igbos should adopt to achieve the presidency come 2023?

The Game is politics, we don’t use words like we must, what goes to the mindset of other people is that are you going to take it by force, how do you do it, you had to now consult with people from other parts of the country to make them build that trust in you and contrary to the opinion of a lot of people there that we don’t have competent people from the South-East who have presented themselves , I think we do ,we just need to really relax and listen to what there are saying and simple way we are going to support the 2023 election.

I have been trying to find out from you ,do we have competent candidates from southeast, I wanted to find out from  you since the whole idea of zoning is about equity, fairness, Justice,

What do you make of youths involvement in the run up now to 2023 general election as somebody who was in the race for the presidential election during the last general election in 2019

What do you think have improved in terms of youths  participation in the two dominant parties, even voters or prospect to voters

 

Yee, very clearly for how we draw from 2019 down to 2023 ,a lot of awareness from young people ,there is a lot of anger unfortunately ,emotions are running high, in as much as what we are doing with this politics ,we have to allow our emotions and our sentiments to stay aside ,so that we face the business of the day which is politics.

 

A lot of young people have awaken to all of this and in 2019 when I rang for Office of the President, One thing I said  very clearly is that 2019 we should have an Igbo President . But if this people we had conversations before who are trying to run again, if they had listened to what we had for them in 2019, we would have built a lot of momentum for them

I think there are a lots  of young groups within the major political parties who are yearning for  a space. There is awareness, there is awakening ,however we do understand that some of the things that hinder them from 2019 election making as much impact as we  want  them is that a lot of people were scared whether we had the competence to deliver, how much experience do we have .

 

We the. youths changed the conversations from how people would come to Media Houses like Arise Tv , but now what you see is people truly talking about what ideas they have and the future.

 

Do you share the view that this politics of zoning can make or mar Nigeria in 2023 because as is pointed out some of the people who carried the flag for politics for zoning in 2015, 2019 are the same people saying there is no need for  zoning.

Are you going to run in 2023 on what platform and when are you going to declare your interest

That is the hypocrisy in the space ,the same people who came out in 2015 and said we have to respect zoning so that we can have inclusiveness, calm ,we don’t heat up the politics so much , so that when we are doing Northern or Southern zone ,we know clearly what we are doing .

I think it’s time for us to move this thing to the south, you asked me whether I am going to be contesting, if I am Igbo I would have been contesting, but I am not Igbo .I begin with Igbo Presidency 2023 .

What do you say to those who say that Nigeria deserves meritocracy and other democracies that we are trying to, I mean that there is no issue of zoning.

That is the biggest problem we have , the whole Copy and Paste technique that we will have to do exactly what is happening in America as seen working in our complex Nigerian Space.

I think that as we progress, democracy is going to also progress, when talking about countries who had held democracy for about 300 years old. This is a new democratically Space ,where we are going to be finding our part ways to progress, at a time like this if we are still identifying our differences in the National Assembly ,we still have to think about it when we reach a level we are going to look who the president of the country becomes .

 

In my opinion, it is competence that I stand by ,we have competent people all over the country ,however by nature of the way the country is structured ,there are some sections of the country to just the Igbos ,ethnic minorities whose have never been able to produce a President .

 

This are the kind of things we have to put into considerations when we are looking onshore who we are going to be supporting to lead the country in a way they will be acceptability of leaders both sides of the divide so that we can start building that trust in ourselves.

 

We see people like Senator Pius Anyim who was a One time Senate President and Secretary of the Government of the Federation. The Senate was stable during his time .The SGF heads the entire Civil Service .Anyim managed that part successfully.

 

Look at Senator Anyim Pius background he is a Lawyer, I think the Igbos at a time like this will look at their sons and say you have credible people ,however we are going to consult ,you know Pius Anyim, a few of his video around ,I have seen him on several television platforms, I listened to his interview and was impressed .

 

 

Let the Igbos in the country see how there can support ,let us start consulting far and wide across the country ,understanding that what we need to succeed in a political space is not making blanket statements like we shall, we will win but to understand that that the game of politics is consultation and lobbying to gain the confidence and acceptance of the people .

 

In summary, the issue about Igbo Presidency is about Justice, fairness, equity ,nobody in Nigeria should assume that one group is doing another group a favour .We are all in this country together .