An Igbo group, Nzuko Igbo Bu Igbo, Monday said that Nigeria needed a Northern president of Middle Belt extraction.

According to a statement to Vanguard in Owerri, by the co-conveners, of the group Nwama Ibe and Mr. Okechukwu Onwubere, claimed that the Middle Belt region has been largely marginalized among other regions in the North.

Another reason given by Nzuko Igbo Bu Igbo, was that the people of the Middle Belt region, have been in the fore front of the campaign for total restructuring of Nigeria.

Recalling that, the wave of demonstration in the country seeking for the disintegration of the entity called Nigeria, could be solved by simply restructuring the country.

The statement reads, “In some parts of the country, the feelings of exclusion from the scheme of things is so palpable to the extent some were forced to demand for sovereignty as exemplified by the agitations of some separatists groups, like the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and other insipient nationalistic agitations from many minority groups in Nigeria.

“These myriads of problems prompted the suggestion in enlightened circles that the solution lies in restructuring Nigeria into eight regions and to return to the 1963 Federal constitution as was canvassed by a Jos-based Izu Umunna Cultural Association in an advertorial in the Sun Newspaper of 10 January 2018.

“It is a well-known fact that restructuring of the polity to engender inclusiveness in governance is the DNA of the Middle Belt man or woman. It goes back to the days of the military Governor of Old Plateau State, late CP Joseph Gomwalk, a University of Ibadan first class graduate of Zoology, who was reputed to have influenced emergence of Benue Plateau State.

“Our summation is based on the fact that since independence, the Middle Belt have been shortchanged in the governance of the country, coupled with the fact that Middle Belt leaders have been at the vanguard of the restructuring of Nigeria even before it became a theme of national discourse.

“Also, our conclusion is premised on the fact that since the major political parties have zoned the position of the president of Nigeria to Northern Nigeria in 2019, only a president of Middle Belt extraction can be trusted to solve the problems.”

•Sourced from a Vanguard report

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