Obi’s choice as Atiku’s VP will not benefit Igbo -Chekwas

nigerianewspoint

The pioneer chairman of All Progressives Ground Alliance, APGA, and presently national chairman of United Progressives Party UPP, Chief Chekwas Okorie has reacted to the nomination of Peter Obi by Atiku Abubakar as his running mate for the 2019 presidential election saying his nomination would only bring tremendous value to that ticket, but noted such value would not make any impact on the Igbo political fate because he is a second follower, and also his principal is saddled with much baggage and explanation to make about his political past.
The UPP national chairman who bared his mind in a recent interview explained that over the years Igbos have continued to cry over marginalization in Nigerian nation, adding that as a major ethnic group that played a key role in the struggle for its independence, many believe that Igbo political relevance in the nation’s political mainstream is being relegated to the background which today has given rise to several groups of Igbo extraction such as MASSOB, IPOB, BRM, BIM etc calling for secession, while others are of the opinion that the only way to appease Ndigbo is to allow them produce President of Nigeria.
Chief Chekwa pointed out that the recent reaction of South East PDP stakeholders that they were not consulted by the PDP presidential candidate, before choosing former Governor of Anambra State Peter Obi as running mate shows that the Igbo political relevance in Nigeria has practically disappeared since after Dr. Namdi Azikiwe achieved the feat of becoming ceremonial president stressing that even though it was merely ceremonial he was able to use to make Igbo voice to be the heard at the national level.
According to him it was this disappearance of Igbo at the national stage that made him go in search of a platform that would return the zone to the mainstream thus the formation of APGA and subsequent emergence of Chief Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu as its presidential standard bearer regretting that nothing much has changed since that time.
Chief Okorie who acknowledged that Obi is a good material that would add value to the PDP candidates campaign noted rather unhappily that it would not bring much in terms of relevance and returns for the zone because he will be a follower and not the leader in the equation.

Related posts