A non partisan group, Njiko Igbo, has disagreed with a former Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Chief Simeon Okeke, that the North will not support the clamour for a president of igbo extraction in 2015 because the South East did not back the North for the 2011 presidential race.
Njiko Igbo, in a statement by its acting National Publicity Secretary, Brady Chijioke Nwosu, said Okeke was wrong in his position that since the North lost the presidency in 2011 because the Igbo did not back its candidate, the region was likely to repay the South East in its own coin.
Nwosu said the Igbo backed the Northern candidate for the 2011 election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, up to the point that most Northerners declared support for the winner of the election and the candidate of the South South, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
He said in the statement issued on Sunday: “You cannot say that the Igbos did not support the North. We supported the North. The Northern Elders Forum came up with a consensus arrangement for the 2011 presidential election.
“Prior to that agreement, there was a tacit understanding that President Goodluck Jonathan may not run.
“And Jonathan when he decided to run, former military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida tactically withdraw and Atiku Abubakar emerged. I have the privilege to know that the elite Northern supported Abubakar. Senator Ben Obi was representing Aliyu Gusau. Chief Raymond Dokpesi was representing Babangida.
“But the point is that the individual Northerner supported Abubakar, but the northern political bloc did not support him. That was why he did not prevail in the convention. It was not because the Igbo man did not support. We supported. And when we discovered that the political bloc of the North was not coming strong to support him, we didn’t have any other choice than to remain calm. Jonathan became president today because of the Igbo vote.”
Nwosu said the best thing that could happen to Nigeria is for an Igbo man to become the president.
He added: “We are deploying every strategy to mark sure that it works. But I can assure Chief Simeon Okeke that we cannot give up and we don’t want them to give up.
“Maybe, they feel they are retired and do not have the strength to pursue it. They should be praying for us. I can assure him and the rest of Igbos that the Igbo man is on the right track to become president. No going back.”
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