Anyim, Ezeife: South-East must persuade, beg others to clinch 2023 presidency

What the South-East needs in its quest for the presidency in 2023 is to persuade other regions to support their ambition.

Even if it means prostrating or kneeling down or persuasion, the people of South-East must adopt this approach to clinch the presidency in 2023.

This was the submission of Chukwuemeka Ezeife, a former governor of Anambra, and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim.

They spoke on Saturday at the United For Better Nigeria Initiative (UBNI) National Convention in Abuja.

Anyim, a former Senate President and presidential hopeful, said that it is neither a right nor was it legal for the South-East to demand presidency.

Anyim said that they had to persuade other regions to support their dream if they would produce a president in 2023.

“Is it right for the South-East to produce the next president? My answer is legally no, and the reason is that the constitution is clear, the constitution says every Nigerian of 40 years is entitled to aspire for that office.

“On the other side, morally is it right? Is it an entitlement? I will say yes because the federal character principle enshrined in the constitution encourages rotation.

“The reason I have to make this clarification is that when the right you have is not legal, the only approach and the instrument you have is persuasion.

“So the approach, the language will be to persuade others to see reason with you that morally they should support you to take a turn since it rotates.”

Anyim therefore encouraged the South-East that as they go ahead with the movement of advocating for a president, it should be with an altitude persuasion.

According to Ezeife, the kind of Nigeria God wanted when He created Nigeria was for her to develop into a super power among nations, and raise respect and dignity for all blacks on earth.

He said that one of the ways to achieve the feats the nation wanted was to carry everybody along without discrimination.

“So I found Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and other groups in this place talking about the need for federal character. If you do it that way, there will be unity, if there is fairness, equity, justice, you will have unity and progress.

“In the absence of those, you see where we are now. It is not a matter of give us president, we don’t give, you have to work for it, the Igbo does not prostrate.

“The Igbo man does not kneel down but this time, we are prepared to kneel down to every part of Nigeria, every group, every ethnic group in Nigeria, we are prepared to even prostrate because we believe in this country.”

Ezeife said that Igbo people had contributed greatly to the development of Nigeria in terms of infrastructure, intellect and business.

He therefore said that it was time to give Igbo people the chance to build Nigeria to the standard God wanted it.