The Senior Elders Forum of the Yoruba Council of Elders have said the continued agitation by the South East to become the President of the country will remain an “illusory ambition” until the present structure is restructured.
The elders, through a former National President of YCE, Dansaaki Samuel Agbede, when speaking with newsmen, said in as much as the socio-cultural organization is not opposing the South Easterner becoming President in 2023.
He said emphatically that the grievous blunder by a former leader, Dr Nnamdi Azikwe to snub the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s overture in 1959 to team up together as one indivisible entity, would continue to haunt the Igbos until a renegotiation is made.
Agbede said, “All these problems we are having today. It is that history of 1959 that history of Nigeria was put on the table for creation, direction and for administration. Elections came, no party won and Awolowo for the West saw the writing on the wall. This is the auspicious portion of history that decisions that would be taken in 1959 would cast permanent structure of the whole story on the administration of Nigeria”.
“He (Awolowo) went to Enugu with his team to see Nnamdi Azikwe that they should team together at this crucial moment. Awolowo went to the extent of telling Azikwe that he(Awolowo) was ready to cede the prime ministership of Nigeria to him and that he(Awolowo) would be contented with the Minister of Finance. Azikwe considered it and gave him a seemingly positive answer and they came back home only, shortly after, that Nnamdi went to his boss in Kaduna. That was the end of any other restructuring of configuration of Nigeria and that was how they ceded power to the North.”
“That is where the North got hold of power till the present day. The North were appreciative and they named that Abuja Airport Nnamdi Azikwe because it was Azikwe, on a platter of gold, who gave them the power which the same South East is now trying to wrestle. Is that possible? There is no way they(South East)can get there. The South East is just in illusory ambition of being the president of Nigeria. For as long as our present mode of politics is in place, I cannot see, in the foreseeable future, the South East presenting the President of Nigeria because they, themselves with their own hands, gave their presidency to the North.”
Declaring that YCE would never buy the idea of Afenifere supporting a South East presidency when there is Yoruba man jostling for the same position, said proverbially, “How would it sound in the ears of Oduduwa that our own son who is a vice President in an arrangement, will be left and we now vote for another person? If we do that, it means the way we have been marginalized since 1959 will still continue.”
“That’s why we have decided in YCE that we cannot leave the waist of our own son who is in dire need of decorative beads empty and decorate the waist of another?”
When asked if denying the South East the access to the presidency would not stoke fire for segregation, he said, “that is everybody’s business. That is why we are saying let us sit don and talk about this whole thing because we are different nations birthed together in 1914. I don’t know who gave them(North) the knowledge to say let us put this down and sign for 100 years. It had a limitation. It has expired.”
“Nobody is talking about it except now that some elders, like Afe Bablola are just waking up. We are not the same and I don’t know how you will now glue us together. It is a political slavery. The East undid themselves. They can’t wipe out history.”
“For as long as we practise this mode of democracy in Nigeria, it is impossible. Another thing is that they(South East) can’t agree with themselves.
On the rumour that former President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan would be defecting to the ruling APC, he noted, “Jonathan is breaking a world record of being a president defecting from his own party to another party. He left his own party who made him the president of Nigeria and ran to the opposition party. Who does not know that there is something under the carpet? Whose interest is he trying to protect?
“When people are foreseeing an unpalatable future for Nigeria, they know what they are saying because the ominous signs are clearly manifesting. The ominous signs cannot give anybody hope of predicting peace and harmony for 2023.
Insisting on his earlier stance that general election might not hold, he restated, that those who have been clamouring for positions in the 2023 election, will soon know that it is a mirage.
“The presidency of South East is a mirage. The history of Nigeria would have been different now if the South East had not snubbed Awolowo’s overture. So, with this present arrangement, they are just deluding themselves unless they decide to come down to unite with all other zones in the South as one united group to sit at a table and re-renegotiate that amalgamation.”
“I credit Jonathan, as lousy and corrupt as his government was, he made an effort in 2014 which is the year the amalgamation expired, but what became of it. They went to Abuja for a mere jamboree, collected millions of naira and came back home. We are still swimming in the political abyss of uncertainty and insecurity”, he claimed.
“The signs of sanity are not surfacing on the horizon and we can just pray that something will happen that will make the whole thing to be doused with peace. I sympathize with the East, I don’t say they should not become the president, the Afenifere people from the South West are backing them strongly so also is Edwin Clarke”.
“But, we members of the Senior Elders of YCE, are not necessarily following Afenifere agenda because Afenifere is a social political organization and YCE is a social cultural group. When Falae was aspiring to be president, that was when all of them engaged in the mother of betrayal. That was how YCE emanated. The YCE and Afenifere have hadly harmonized their agenda in political spectrum”.
“During the second term of Obasanjo, the Afenifere said they would never support him and they didn’t but made peace with East to support Falae. Today, they are now paying back what South East did for them by supporting Falae then. But, YCE sees things differently”, he concluded.
