YORUBA'S INTEREST IN 2023 NIGERIAN PRESIDENCY: INCOMPREHENSIBLY SELFISH.

ICHEOKU says it is absolutely unfathomable that any other group in Nigeria, particularly the Yoruba Southwest, will be actively seeking the presidency of Nigeria in 2023 and to the detriment of Southeast Igbo people who rightly deserves a shot at the presidency. With so many decades of marginalization and having never been allowed at the helm of affairs in Nigeria for over 55 years, Igbo people rightly deserves a recompense of 2023 presidency.

The best way to remedy their situation and to truly redress their hurt feeling of not being treated as equal citizens of Nigeria is for other nationalities in Nigeria, particularly Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani people, to unanimously concede the presidency in 2023 to Igbo people who shall then chose among themselves who to nominate. Igbo people have earned the right to first refusal of Nigeria presidency in 2023 than any other group in Nigeria and should be allowed to exercise it. Any other group of people in Nigeria seeking the presidency in 2023, particular if the Yoruba people, simply indicates that Nigerian's unity does not matter to them and that they do not care if every Nigerian group is  treated fairly and equally or perpetually marginalized. 

But with the Yoruba people, it seems that it is always all about them and nobody else, the reason their acute selfishness has contributed heavily in the erosion of unity in Nigeria. Who knows what Ahmed Bola Tinubu has been discussing with Muhammadu Buhari all these times he visits Aso Rock and they hold their usual closed door meetings. It is possible the two are always strategizing on and fine-tuning how Yoruba and Fulani people will continue to tag-team Igbo people and perpetually keep them in bondage of marginalization and inside political dog house in Nigeria, without ever allowing them a chance at any national political relevance and/or leadership/power position in Nigeria.

ICHEOKU says that any Yoruba person should be coveting the Nigeria presidency in 2023, so soon after four of their kinsmen have been in the seat of power, without any Igbo person taking a turn except for the four years Alexander Ekwueme was a sidelined Vice President to Shehu Shagari and Ebitu Ukiwe's one year as Babangida's Chief of General Staff or de-facto Vice President, is to say the least greediness personified. Olusegun Obasanjo had 11 years headship of Nigeria (3 years as Head of State and 8 years as president); Ernest Shonekan was the Head of Nigeria Interim government for 4 months; Oladipo Diya was Chief of General Staff or de-facto Vice President in Sani Abacha's regime for 3 years and Yemi Osinbajo will soon complete his 8 years as Vice President of Muhammadu Buhari. 

So all together, Yoruba people have been in power for 22 years and 4 months as against Igbo people's 5 years; yet they want another go at it and you wonder is it due to thoughtlessness or crass greed. It is a glaring indication that they do not care about Southern solidarity or even fairness within the Nigeria political spectrum; and that everything is about themselves and nobody else. ICHEOKU says can anyone imagine the opprobrium which the Yoruba people would have rained down on Igbo people were the situation to be reversed and an Igbo person is actively seeking a shot at the Nigeria presidency in 2023. A matter made even worse because of all the effort that have been made over so many years to effectuate a handshake across the Niger. 

Why are Yoruba people not always as supportive to Igbo causes as Igbo people are to Yoruba causes and sometimes even spearhead and champion them. But all Igbo people's effort at rapprochement have always been rebuffed, resisted and sometimes even sabotaged by Yoruba people and you ask yourself why do they always behave antagonistically towards Igbo people. Why this hostility and has it grown to such degree that nothing can ever be done to broach brotherly spirit between the two groups. Even media, particularly news print media do not even cover Igbo matters as they cover other groups, except of course when it is crime related and they want to portray and depict Igbo people as the abhorrent group in Nigeria. 

What manner of a people are these sons and daughters of Oduduwa anyway, that they cannot find it in themselves to give Southern Nigeria's unity a serious try. Why are they the way they are and why do they do the things they do and any attempt to seek answers will be met with that they allow Igbo people to live and do business in their region. ICHEOKU says so what, are Igbo people not paying to live and do business in Yoruba land and by extension extensively enrich their region with real estate developments and a whole lot of revenue from property and other taxes as well as living expenses. 

But the Yoruba hostility towards Igbo people did not start today, but a very long time ago before independence when their Obafemi Awolowo sabotaged Nnamdi Azikwe's victory in the old Western regional House of Assembly because he did not want Igbo people to "dominate" Yoruba people in Yoruba land. The move irrevocably instituted tribalism in Nigeria as the sabotaged Zik returned to Eastern Region and forced out a minority, present day Akwa Ibom State man, Eyo Ita who was the head of Eastern government as in his own understanding, mirroring Obafemi Awolowo, Igbo majority in the East cannot be lorded it over by the minority Efik man. 

Subsequently, there was the Biafran civil war and it was the same Yoruba's Obafemi Awolow who ensured that Igbo people were dealt with the harshest cruelty known to mankind. He engineered and imposed a bone crushing economic blockade which completely shut off food and medicine supplies to war ravaged Biafra and it led to kwashiorkor with millions of women and children starving to death due to malnutrition. 

At the end of the war, Obafemi Awolowo also seized all Igbo people's money in the banks, giving them only 20 pounds in lieu of whatever millions their bank deposits might contain. It was during the same time that he indigenized all foreign companies in Nigeria and auctioned them off to his Yoruba people and in some case even provided them loan with soft and often interest free government loans which to pay for their purchase price. It is also worthy of note that it was during the same time when Igbo people had only 20 pounds to their name and could not afford to participate in the purchase of these companies. It led to the economic gap between Yoruba and Igbo people which is continuously being bridged. But not yet done with his bloodiness, he caused so many Igbo properties to be seized, deemed abandoned in Yoruba region particularly in Lagos State. 

Then the second republic came and while Zik's Eastern NPP was opened negotiation for a working alliance with Awolowo's UPN, Awolowo went behind to hold a different alliance meeting with Shagari's NPN. Then add Oladipo Diya's  asinine hatred for Igbo people and his resolute stand against appointing Igbo people to government positions because according to him, Igbo people should not be rewarded for the civil war with appointments in the Abacha regime. Then there was the MKO Abiola's well deserved and rightly won presidential election which was principally sabotaged by his Yoruba people. 

Obas and prominent Yoruba people were promised and given oil blocks as a trade off for Abiola's presidency and they sold out. Obi of Lagos Akiolu once threatened to publicly name those who recievied the oil blocs but was prevailed upon and he reneged. It is also on record that many prominent Yoruba people served in the Abacha/Diya regime and Olusegun Obasanjo was also on record in South Africa telling the whole listening world that Abiola was not the messiah which Nigerian people were looking for. 

The annulled election led to the "Abiola riot" in which Igbo people actively participated and vociferously demanded that Abiola's mandate must be restored. Then NADECO was formed to fight Abacha and to restore Abiola's mandate; but while all the efforts were being made to ensure that Abiola got his mandate back, his Yoruba people were working to ensure that he was never sworn in and they succeeded. Eventually Abdulsalam Abubakar's regime released an Abacha imprisoned Olusegun Obasanjo from prison and made Obasanjo president under the color of an election, as a payback for Yoruba people over Abiola. Obansanjo spent eight years in Aso Rock and before then in 1976 to 1979, another 3 years as Head of State. Osinbanjo in 2023 would have served 8 years as Nigeria Vice President. 

But Igbo people have not been similarly privileged but it does not matter to some of this Yoruba people that they have had a fair shake at Nigeria's seat of power and that others, particularly Igbo people deserves their own fair shake. Are they this callous or simply too greedy not to give a care in the world about this apparent injustice which have kept Igbo people in the cold for more than 50 years now. Igbo people would not have done it to Yoruba people and would be the ones hollering at the top of their lungs for   a Yoruba person to become president in 2023 were the position to be reversed. But Yoruba people are still actively lobbying and seeking the Nigeria presidency in 2023 despite all these. 

Ahmed Bola Tinubu is running for president in 2023 and now Olusegun Obasanjo is sponsoring Akinwumi Adesina, his former Minister of Agriculture and President of African Development Bank as his preferred candidate to counter Tinubu. ICHEOKU says does it mean that this two men, Tinubu and Obasanjo, are conscienceless and that they actively support and are part of the marginalization against Igbo people. Even the present Muhammadu Buhari quagmire which Nigerians are mired in was with active connivance of this two Yoruba personalities as Buhari could not have been elected without them. 

Before Obasanjo and Tinubu's conspiracy which kicked Goodluck Jonathan out of Aso Rock, Buhhari had three times run for and three times lost the presidency as Nigerian people continuously rejected him until Obasanjo assured Nigerians that Buhari was "educated enough to be president" and Tinubu committed several bullion vans into the project. But instead of apologizing to Nigerians for what they did to them with Buhari and then disappearing into the oblivion for being such poor judgement of character, here they are again, shamelessly seeking to get into Aso Rock themselves, personally and by proxy. But the duo has no shame and they are as shameless as street hookers fighting over their pay.

ICHEOKU says is not in anyway denying Yoruba people the right to participation in politics and/or to seek whatever office in Nigeria which they crave. But fairness demands that they be circumspect about others, particularly Igbo people, who have not been allowed to hold power during the last 55 years. They will not accept such nor will they tolerate such imprudence from the Igbo people were the situation to be reversed. If Yoruba people are sincerely committed to Nigerian unity and care about Southern Nigeria brotherliness and care about the handshake across the Niger, they should be the ones drumming support for a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2023. 

There should be no Yoruba person queuing up for president in 2023 and they will dutifully do whatever it takes to ensure that an Igbo person become the next president of Nigeria in 2023. It is the right and proper thing to do and it is the only way to ensure Nigeria unity by carry every part of the country along. A president of Nigeria of Igbo extraction is sacrosanct to keeping Nigeria as one and nothing else is truer than this incontrovertible fact. Therefore Tinubu and Obasanjo must drop their ambitions and throw their weight behind the Project Elect Igbo person president of Nigeria in 2023. Nothing else makes sense and nothing else counts.