2023: Group Urges Buhari To Pick Successor From South East APC Members

Posted by Ignatius Okpara African News, Latest Headlines, News, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Sunday, August 29th, 2021

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – As the 2023 general election gathers momentum, a group Championing the actualization of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction, under the platform of Southeast Mandate, (SEM), via the ruling All progressive Congress APC has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to assist in facilitating the process of the party nominating its presidential Candidate among any of its trusted member in the region.

It said the sole purpose of setting up the body is to actualize a president of Southeast extraction come next election.

Briefing newsmen after their National Executives Council meeting held in Enugu, weekend, Convener of the group, Senator Julius Ucha from Ebonyi State, said they have identified lack of trust, latent fear, suspicion and prejudices as some of the factors holding the South East down in Nigeria’s political equation, adding that they have decided to work on it to enable them achieve their purpose.

The former Chairman, Senate Committee on Works stated that another problem facing the region which SEM has identified is their inability to build a common platform “to articulate their common interest and this difficulty is what we intended to resolve by building this platform.

“This platform is expected to provide opportunities through which we can vigorously debate our interest, set our priorities and tailor them to achieve our common purpose.

“If we have a forum where we exhaust our republican energies and channel it to a common cause without making a public show of our differences, most Nigerians will be denied the space to always tag us as a people who will never agree on a common course.”

According to the former Ebonyi State House of Assembly Speaker, “South east is a solid part of Nigeria and should have opportunity of producing the president of this country because, equality is equity.”

Commenting on their preferred choice of candidate should the opportunity be given to them, the Convener said that “the purpose of this movement is to persuade the people of South East extraction who may have presidential ambition to know the need of coming together to present a candidate that will be generally accepted and have capacity to drive the process, and we are on cause to achieving that.

On the call for every political party in Nigeria to cede their Presidential ticket to the south-east, Ucha opined that “every political party in Nigeria is aware that south east is ripe for their Presidential ticket in the spirit of justice, equity and good conscience.

He also disclosed that they are in synergy with any group that’s working for the soul purpose of producing a president of South East extraction in 2023.

African Examiner reports that among some of the APC Chieftains from the five South East states, that graced the meeting included Senator Tony Agbo, DCN. Ideato C. Ideato Okoli, Enugu State Caretaker Committee Chairman of the party Dr. Ben Nwoye, the Chairman of Enugu State Contact and Mobilization, Chief Alphonsus Udeh, and his woman counterpart, Mrs. Lolo Queen Nwankwo.