Foremost Ijaw leader and Minister of Information in the First Republic, Chief Edwin Clark, has thrown his weight behind the current moves by the Ohanaeze Ndigbo to produce Nigeria’s next President in 2023, insisting that it was the turn of the South East geopolitical zone to produce the occupier of the highest office in the land.
Chief Clark said this, on Sunday, when he received in the audience, the leadership of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo and some South-East leaders led by the President General, Prof. George Obiozor, at his Asokoro, Abuja residence.
Going down memory lane, Chief Clark told his guests that the First Nigerian President, the late Nnamdi Azikiwe, worked with the people of the South-South to carve out the Mid-West as an independent region in the defunct First Republic.
He pledged to mobilise his people to reciprocate Azikiwe’s gesture by working with the South-East leaders to produce an Igbo presidency in 2023.
Acording to Chief Clark, “I don’t belong to any political party, but I speak my mind. The man who brought Politics into Nigeria was late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, I knew him when I was I was 20 years when he visited Warri, we trekked 12 miles to come and see him.
“Some of the problems we are having today in Delta was as a result of the support from Azikiwe and without that, we would not have got Mid-West region that later became Bendel State and now Edo and Delta states. We are together, we are one.
“We are supporting the South East region. Anybody from the Mid West, anybody from Oshimili South and North, Aniocha South and North, Ika, Agbor or Ukwani, if you say I am ready to be the President of Nigeria because I am an Igbo, that is punishable because when you do something that people don’t like, it abominable.
“I have said it, all the Igbo in Anioma, Rivers, in Delta, where ever they are, this is the time for Igbo, South-East President.
“We have the same problem, when we went to the 2014 National Conference, we said that the South East has five states, they should be given additional states so that everyone will have some states like in other zones if that will stablise Nigeria.
“We want the President coming after Buhari to come from the South-East, we are together.
“Let me advise; if you must fight a war or fight for anything at all, we must put our house in order. What do we do with other voices that are not in tandem with our voices? We must find a way to see what can be done, they have their own point, but at the same time, they should also listen to us.”
