By TINA TIMOTHY

A pan-Igbo socio-political group, focusing on promoting good governance, equity, and conscientious leadership in Igbo land and in Nigeria, the Igbo Leaders Foundation (ILDF), has urged the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Special Zoning Committee to strictly recommend that the 2023 Presidential ticket of the party be zoned to the South-East geopolitical zone.

The demand by ILDF, which at the moment is promoting the emergence of a Nigerian President of Southeast extraction in the 2023 General Elections, is contained in a Memo the group sent to the 37-member Zoning Committee of the PDP, with a stern warning that failure to do so would attract severe consequences.

The Memo, according to a statement signed by its Chairman, Dr. Godwin I. Udibe, National Secretary, Onyebuchi Obeta Esq and Director, Public Affairs, Dr. Law O. Mefor, ILDF is titled, “The PDP Should Zone its 2023 Presidential Ticket to the ‘Southeast,’ not to the ‘South’.”

The simple reason for the demand, ILDF explained, is that the South East, since the end of the civil war in 1970, has not produced a President for the country, even in the current democratic dispensation.

“There will be consequences. Southeast would very likely vote against the PDP in protest if denied the presidential ticket of the party. This is not an idle threat. Southeast is a PDP zone and should be treated respectfully,” ILDF said in s statement made available to the News Express Monday.

“ILDF believes that, in line with the express provision of the PDP constitution, since power has resided in the North for two straight terms it has to move specifically to the South East, in the spirit of rotation and zoning, which has been the practice since 1999,” the group insisted, adding that anything to the contrary would amount to promoting injustice.

Listing advantages of zoning the PDP Presidential ticket to the Southeast, the group said: “ILDF wishes to conclude by assuring the PDP of block votes and crowd funding in support of any Southeast man or woman they chose who has integrity, competence, national acceptability. Such a Southeast candidate will surely bring Nigeria out of the woods by putting to rest the ghost of Biafra and taking the country to next level. Nigerians will once more experience peace, growth and development. Together we shall make Nigeria great again and usher in a country where no section will ever feel left behind again.”

The Memo, according to the statement, reads in part:

“It will be recalled that the Igbo Leadership Development Foundation, in its pursuit of peace and national unity, organised a National Conversation – The Great Debate for National Unity, which focused on Federal Character, Restructuring and Rotation of Presidential Power in Nigeria. That historic event held on March 5, 2020, at Sheraton Hotel Abuja. The 2nd National Conversation, which ILDF specifically organized for the President of Southeast extraction held in May 2021, at NICON Luxury hotel, Abuja.

“We will continue to preach unity, equity, and fairness in the relationships among ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, including the fundamental need for rotation of Presidential power in Nigeria’s polity.

“ILDF is aware that, due to the structural imbalances and inequity inherent in the Nigerian polity, Rotation and zoning principle was written into the PDP’s constitution in 2009. Article 7(2c) of the PDP constitution states that: ‘In pursuance of the principle of equity, justice and fairness, the party shall adhere to the policy of rotation and zoning of party and public elective offices, and it shall be enforced by the appropriate executive committee at all levels.’ In its wisdom and patriotic zeal, the PDP has allowed power to rotate between geopolitical zones in North and South and made it both a manifesto and a constitutional matter. What this means is that, going by the party constitution, the subsisting principle of rotation leaves PDP with no choice than to zone the presidency in 2023 to the appropriate geopolitical zone, unless it amends its constitution. It is also important to note that the PDP manifesto, as archived by INEC on their website in 2019, stipulates the rotation of power as a principle that must be followed by the party and therefore the principle is actionable, justiciable and enforceable since it derives from the party’s constitution.

“Again, the structural imbalances in Nigeria have made federal character and rotation of presidential power inevitable. Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) states that “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few State or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies”.

“Kindly note that, owing to the indivisibility of the office of the President of Nigeria, the only way the federal character principle will apply to the office of the President as a political office referred to in the Constitution is by rotating it. And this has been the practice since 1999 but now that it is the turn of the South-East to benefit from it, some PDP leaders want to change it. That is tantamount to changing the goalpost in the middle of the game.

“It is important to remind such PDP leaders that when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan repudiated zoning to run in 2015 regardless of the PDP constitution barring him, his action sparked an implosion in the PDP. He won the party’s primaries unopposed but lost the presidential election mainly due to protest votes, as the splinter group – the nPDP – made up of 5 governors and others left the party and joined forces with other legacy political blocks to form the APC to wrestle power from the PDP.

“Is history not about repeating itself? Those who fail to learn from history are said to be condemned to repeat class. There will be consequences. Southeast would very likely vote against the PDP in protest if denied the presidential ticket of the party. This is not an idle threat. Southeast is a PDP zone and should be treated respectfully.

“ILDF believes that, in line with the express provision of the PDP constitution, since power has resided in the North for two straight terms it has to move specifically to the South East, in the spirit of rotation and zoning, which has been the practice since 1999.

“ILDF believes that zoning power to the Southeast is a matter of justice and equity, and not a matter of mere political gamesmanship. History tells us that the PDP should zone its presidential ticket to the Southeast, not to the South in general because in 1999, presidential power was zoned to a geopolitical zone in recognition of the justice of remedying the annulment of the presidential election in 1993. The founders of PDP zoned it specifically to the Southwest, not to the south in general. To buttress that it was micro-zoned to the Southwest. Both Dr. Alex Ekwueme and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo were from southern Nigeria. But it was zoned straight to Southwest. Similarly, APP stepped down Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu who won its primary election in place of Olu Falae, from the Southwest because of the need to have only candidates from the Southwest contest the election. AD had to deny Dr. Ezeife its mandate to accommodate Chief Olu Falae as a candidate in its merger with APP, in the spirit of zoning to Southwest to address the June 12 injustice.

“The implication of the argument above is that the PDP ought to follow its constitution and zone its presidential ticket to the Southeast as a recognition that it is the only part of the South that has not held presidential power since 1999. To zone to the South as a whole without micro-zoning to the Southeast is a plot to deny the people of Southeast justice and fairness, it is to betray the principle of zoning as applied to the Southwest in 1999.

“As a matter of justice and equity, we expect that PDP leaders in other geopolitical zones in the Southeast should all support that the 2023 PDP presidential candidacy should be directly zoned to the Southeast as a matter of justice and good faith, in order to preserve the unity and integrity of the PDP. We request the 37 members of the PDP Special Committee on Zoning to find the courage to recommend that the presidency to the Southeast zone.

“Such party leaders surreptitiously pushing for the jettisoning of zoning and rotation of Presidential seat when their zones have filled the office based on the same principle, are promoting injustice in an unhealthy and ungentlemanly equivocation, which gives the impression that the South-East does not matter or have any valid stake in the PDP or in Nigeria.

“ILDF does not need to warn that there will be consequence if our efforts at promoting peace and unity in Nigeria through dialogue are sabotaged. This is not a threat but a natural response from an injured zone that has shown the greatest commitment and fidelity to the PDP as political party since its inception.

“We wish to seize this opportunity to thank the growing number of patriotic citizens from all parts of the country who have thrown their weight behind the push for the emergence of Nigerian President of South-East extraction.

“ILDF wishes to conclude by assuring the PDP of block votes and crowd funding in support of any Southeast man or woman they chose who has integrity, competence, national acceptability. Such a Southeast candidate will surely bring Nigeria out of the woods by putting to rest the ghost of Biafra and taking the country to next level. Nigerians will once more experience peace, growth and development. Together we shall make Nigeria great again and usher in a country where no section will ever feel left behind again.

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