Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, has said that the Igbos of the South-east geo-political zone of the country should not demand the presidency in 2023, because they did not deserve it.
He said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) got lesser votes in the region during the 2019 presidential election than in any other zone, describing it as voting against the party.
Speaking with journalists at the weekend, Amaechi said the Igbo have nothing to bring to the negotiation table for 2023 presidency, stressing that the region’s decision to support candidate of the opposition party was an error.
According to him, “I don’t know what they will do now for voting against the APC, for refusing to support the APC. They cannot come to the table to demand the presidency slot. For people like us in the APC, if the Igbo had come and voted Buhari, they would boldly tell Mr. President and the National Chairman of the party that presidency should go the Southeast.
“But since the South-south; South-west and North-west have produced president, what argument would the Southeast come up with now to convince anybody that they deserve the slot for 2023 president?”
The minister said that the region is completely out of national politics and that if the Igbo are not found in national politics, it would be to the detriment of their children.
Prior to the 2019 elections, Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), had also said the chances of Igbo clinching the presidential seat would depend on the vote the region turns in for President Muhammadu Buhari.
Since the return of democracy in 1999, Nigeria is yet to have a president of Igbo extraction.
Speaking on the way forward for the ruling party, Amaechi said the APC needs to do a lot of re-engineering and put the party together if they would continue to be in power.
He said there are lots of meetings that they are supposed to be having, like those they used to hold when he was in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
“They need to bring caucus together, set up structures at the states and local government levels that will be meeting regularly,” he said.
“They also need to fund those structures. If these things happen, APC will continue to rule the country but I have a problem with the fact that everybody is not completely involved,” he said.
Iniobong Iwok with agency report
