By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
The convener, The Godswill Project, (TGP), Femi Odere yesterday, described the clamour for the zoning of Senate Presidency to the South East part of the country as mischievous, and subtle blackmail.
TGP convener in a statement, accused the Coalition of APC Support Groups (CASG) of attempting to sway the APC to zone the Senate Presidency in the coming 10th National Assembly to the South East.
He faulted the claim by CASG that conceding the Senate President position to the South East geo-political zone would achieve “national cohesion and integration, and for peace to be pursued and delivered in the South-East political zone.”
“While no harm, whatsoever, has been done by the coalition in its support for the Senate Presidency to be conceded to the South East geopolitical region, it’s disingenuous, mischievous, and an attempt at subtle blackmail by the coalition to have been emphatic in its submission that the insecurity challenges in the South East were the result of “non-inclusivity in principal elective appointments” of people from the region since the birth of this political dispensation”, he said.
Odere added, ” This is nothing but a crass misrepresentation of the facts. The so-called “non-inclusivity” of the Igbo in political appointments cannot also pass muster as it can even be argued that they have more than their fair share of political appointments while they’re also predominant in the commanding heights of the federal civil service since the beginning of the Fourth Republic”.
“The insecurity challenges in the South East cited by the coalition as one of its reasons for the Senate President’s ticket to be zoned to the region is an attempt to be clever by half. It’s therefore, counter-productive as well as counter-intuitive.
“What must be said to the coalition, however, and without equivocation, is that Nigerians from all the geopolitical zones, save the Southeast, heavily disfavours the Senate President to emerge from the Southeast region”.
Odere maintained, ” we must remind Mazi Okoroafor and his coalition, in case they have forgotten, or they chose to have selective amnesia, that the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) and its sister Eastern Security Network (ESN) are up in arms against the Nigerian state not because of “non-inclusivity in principal elective appointments” but because they desire to secede from the federation with the independent Republic of Biafra”.
” The so-called “non-inclusivity” of the Igbo in political appointments cannot also pass muster as it can even be argued that they have more than their fair share of political appointments while they’re also predominant in the commanding heights of the federal civil service since the beginning of the Fourth Republic.
” It’s perhaps safe to conclude at this juncture that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than the Nigerian state to meet the inexhaustible political and domineering appetite of the Southeast, considering the unprecedented infrastructural developments that accrued to the region under the APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari. Whereas hate rage has been the party’s reward in every election cycle.”
