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| Senator Alhaji Adamu Bulkachuwa, had cautioned against an Igbo Presidency. |
The Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrosheed Adewale Akanbi, has sided with Nigeria's oldest serving lawmaker, and Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Alhaji Adamu Bulkachuwa, who in an interview with Daily Trust, said giving South East the Presidency is risky because no one can really tell what they are going to do once they get what they want.
Bulkachuwa in the interview, questioned the motive behind the South East's desperation for power despite being seeking to cede from the country using violent means.
"There are people who feel democracy is not good enough for them and they want to devise their own means of belonging to this entity called Nigeria and if they don’t have their wish, they’ll let Nigeria go to pieces," he said of demands by the South-East.
"Intimidating Nigerians to say, ‘look, give them and let’s see what is going to happen.’ Who will take that risk? They want the presidency to shift to the South East, that is why they are intimidating everybody," he added.
By describing an Igbo Presidency as a 'risk', Bulkachuwa is simply saying the southeast cannot be trusted. This belief can be traced back to the civil war, where the Southeast first attempted to cede from Nigeria under the leadership of Former Governor of the Eastern Region, late Odumegwu Ojukwu.
So, taking Bulkachuwa's words into account, the failure of the South East to produce a President since the end of the civil war, is mostly down to the issue of 'TRUST'.
Oba Abdulrasheed is similarly concerned with the trustworthiness of the South East, saying while he is for equity and fairness, the presence of agitators and the existence of the Eastern Security Network (ESN), makes having an Igbo man as president, a huge risk.
The monarch held that no Nigerian will feel secured in the hands of a leader whose ethnic attachment deprived other Nigerians their rights.
In a statement through Alli Ibraheem, his Chief Press Secretary, the Oluwo stated that the failure of the South Easterners to change their approach will amount to chasing shadow on their political journey of producing Nigeria’s President.
According to him, “The civil war wounds meted on south easterners is a weak factor to institutionalize policies capable of tearing the nation apart.
“I have people from across Nigeria in Iwo, including the South Easterners. They do not only have their businesses but also built their houses and own farm lands. Such is not only peculiar to Iwo but to other parts of the country, except the South-East. A Nigerian in Nigeria should be able to own land anywhere.
“The style by the South easterners is barbaric. Such is not only detrimental to their economic viability but also to their political recognition. As a traditional ruler, I can’t trust any South easterner as my President.
“You can’t be a leader on sectional interest. With such unsophisticated, primitive and uncivilized thinking, no Nigerian from other zones will vote a south easterner as their President.”