IGBO PEOPLE OF SOUTH-EAST, PRESIDENT JONATHAN IS NOT YOUR CANDIDATE!

If President Jonathan is 'Igbo' and runs in 2011; and Igbos also wants the presidency in 2015, where is the logic? Does it mean that the Igbos wants to continue with the presidency in 2015 long after one of them, President Jonathan, has ran in 2011; or that Jonathan's 'Igbo-ness' is not the correct one and is different from the real Igbos that desire the presidency in 2015? 

This is the conflicting fork on the road which the Igbos must themselves internally resolve before it is too late and jeopardize their chances in 2015. They must elect to either disown this Jonathan's claim to Igboness by unequivocally refuting that Jonathan is one of their own or they have to accept that his running in 2011 has already fulfilled that ornate desire by them to occupy Aso Rock. But the current prevarication by some Igbo people that Jonathan is Igbo and at the same time say that the Igbos wants the presidency in 2015 is equivocation of the highest dumbness. It is an 'either' 'or' situation but definitely not an 'and' and this is the challenge facing Igbo political leaders as they cast their lot with various presidential candidates this 2011 election season. 

Regrettably, the Igbos of the South-East are falling for the cheap propaganda that Jonathan is one of their own hence they must support him? Icheoku says the fallacy of this argument is that if Jonathan is "Igbo" and he gets elected in 2011, then he would have then served the Igbo term and thereby deflated the balloon of an Igbo presidency in 2015. His presidency, having taken out the sail from the Igbo agitation, the Igbos will have nothing to look forward to in 2015. It will amount to approbation and re-probation for the Igbo people to "again" want to the presidency in 2015, after "one of their own Jonathan" has already served in 2011. The Igbo people must therefore approach the issue of supporting President Jonathan in his opportunistic 2011 run with political professionalism, in view of what is in the best interest of the Igbo people. They must wisely man-up and let Jonathan and his South-South people know that the Igbo position is not borne out of hatred or lack of love for Jonathan or his people but strictly business - that Igbo's interest is paramount in molding or shifting their allegiances. 

Politics is not about sentimental or emotional outburst of love and affection or even loyalty; no, it is about protecting a peoples' interest and with it comes their bargaining power. So anything or anyone capable of jeopardizing the Igbo presidential agenda 2015, must be stopped at all cost; and treated for what it is - a threat which must be decisively crushed by the Igbos. President Jonathan's run in 2011 is such a threat and must be summarily sabotaged now before it becomes a clog in the wheel of their agenda. Jonathan's run is an existential threat which will greatly affect the chances of the Igbo people in 2015 and therefore it must be preempted, in order to make way for the Igbo 2015 dream to come true. In the movie Godfather, Mafioso Virgil Sollozzo in company of corrupt cop McRuskey in a dinner, while explaining to Micheal why his father Don Corleone was shot, said it was not because of malice or hatred that a hit was placed on the Don but because of purely business reasons? He maintained that his family loves the Don but that he is stopping them from a lucrative drug business, hence the decision to get him out of the way. In similar manner, Jonathan's 2011 must be got out of the way of Igbo 2015 agenda and NOW!

The Igbos should now emulate the people of the South-South themselves and align their forces correctly in the forth-coming presidential primaries 2011. The South-South people themselves have been aligning themselves with the North and disregarding the Igbo people for as long as Icheoku remembers, dating back to the first republic. The South-South sabotaged the Biafran war effort when they aligned with the federalists to embargo Biafra and equally fought on their side. The South-South also gave Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe the finger when they in 1978 aligned with the North's NPN against Zik's NPP. The issue of abandonment property also did not take place in the North or Yoruba South-West but in the same South-South; so the Igbos should by now know who their true friends in Nigeria are and with who their destiny truly lies. Look at Jonathan's cabinet, how many Igbo people occupy juicy positions, talkless of his inner cabinet of advisers and assistants. Even the former Minister Dora Akunyili, who was instigator in chief of his presidency, was not rewarded with any meaningful portfolio and was subsequently pigeonholed into a corner of near irrelevance by Ima Niboro, the presidential spokesperson before she resigned. IGP Onovo was forced out office and likewise Paul Dike the former chief of staff, Ernest Ndukwu of NCC, Ojo Maduekwe of Foreign Affairs and the list goes on and on. So in essence, the Igbos did not fair any better with "their own" in charge compared to under the late former president Umaru Yar'Adua.

Icheoku asks all those Igbo retards who are saying it is either Jonathan or nothing; and who are clamoring for a Jonathan's presidency in 2011, where is your sense of history and pride? Why must it be now that the South-South is warming up to and remembering that they have brothers among the people of the South-East, when they have been showing allegiances over the years to the core North and distancing themselves from the South-East Igbos? Icheoku asks why must it always be the Igbos who are asked to bend over backwards or down, and take it through the rear in order to build a united Nigeria? Every time and each time, the Igbos are the ones required to always to show some understanding in Nigeria and urged to support someone from somewhere else. Why is it always the Igbos that should love Nigeria so much and expected to make concessions including becoming the gypsies of Nigeria with nomadic homes every where in order to foster unity among Nigerians? Why must it be the Igbos that are developing other sections of the country and always being easily short-changed and compromised at every turn.  Now they are once again being asked to support Jonathan in 2011 and by necessary implication foreclose on their 2015 run?  instead of having enough courage to confront this their nemesis in chief in Nigeria. Icheoku says it is about time Igbos' developed a strong backbone to confront their nemesis-in-chief in Nigeria, their second-fiddle role, and assert themselves as equals; forcefully too if need be. 

The choice between Jonathan and Atiku is somewhat a Catch-22 for the "Project Igbo-extraction President of Nigeria 2015"; as either man's success at the polls will operate to defeat or at least dilute the 2015 Igbo presidential agenda. Both Jonathan and Atiku, because of their relative young age and zones of origin are sure to seek and subsequently insist on a second term in 2015. Jonathan will insist that he wants to use the opportunity to serve out the South-south turn and likewise Atiku, who will say that his northeastern zone is equally entitled to a second term. During his last meeting with conference of Governors, Jonathan was non-committal as to what happens when the 2011 term runs out. It is equally instructive that none of Jonathan's supporting Igbo folks have paused to ponder or ask Vice President Namadi Sambo what his political game-plan post 2011 is? Icheoku says it is highly delusional and naive for anyone or any Igbo-man to think that Vice President Sambo will just walk away from the plum job of a president after being president in the waiting as vice for just one term. Who in Sambo's shoes will not like to graduate into a full president and this is yet another missing puzzle piece in the 2015 Igbo agenda? 

It is a subject-matter difficulty, which Icheoku had hoped a north-western presidential candidate would have extinguished, so that the zonal rotation wheel can continue run smoothly, unencumbered. But is anyone in Igboland listening and hearing that neither Jonathan nor Atiku's successful candidacy in 2011 will be helpful to their 2015 cause; which would have made Gusau the best candidate, all circumstances considered. He is from the same north-western zone as YarAdua and would be too old to insist on a second term in 2015; also his northwestern zone would have been timed-out as agreed. The alternative presented by the current consensus candidacy of a northeastern Abubakar Atiku should therefore be embraced by the Igbo South East as the least of the two evil choices; and pray that Atiku will serve out the remaining one Northern term and hand the baton over to the Igbo South-East in 2015. 

This is the only possibility that might see Igbos through with their '2015 Project Produce Nigerian President'; as a Jonathan's presidency will make it highly impossible since there cannot be a concurrent South-South to South-East power transfer or successive presidency at the exclusion of the entire North. Such a South to South transfer of power will produce a lot of unintended consequences and it will defeat both the zonal agreement as well as any otherwise regional arrangement; so it will be fiercely resisted by the North. So the ball is on the court of Igbo people to currently articulate their political game-plan as the decision on who runs Nigeria from 2011 comes to a head with the coming PDP primaries. If the Igbo people want the presidency in 2015 that bad, they must see President Jonathan's attempt at usurpation in 2011 as a threat and therefore help in terminating it. President Jonathan's run in 2011 is detrimental to the 2015 Igbo presidential agenda and must be stopped. Icheoku says this is the only logical line of action by the Igbo South-East heading into the primaries as any other contrary permutation on this subject-matter, is akin to the tales told children, (akuko ana akolu Bia-ati, akukuo-iro) or tales by the moonlight!'