Pius Anyim urges Ndigbo to step up lobbying of other ethnic groups ahead of 2023

FORMER senate president and secretary to the federal government Senator Pius Anyim has conceded that southeast Nigeria does not have an automatic right to produce Nigeria's next president in 2023 but should try and persuade other parts of the country to let it do so.

Although not constitutional, Nigeria's component parts have a gentleman's agreement that the presidency will rotate between the north and the south of the country. President Buhari's tenure will end in 2023 and being a Fulani northern Muslim, it is expected that the next president will come from one of the three geo-political zones in southern Nigeria.

Since the return to democracy in 1999, the southwest has produced President Olusegun Obasanjo and the south-south President Goodluck Jonathan, so come 2023, the presidency should automatically go to the southeast. However, the southeast geo-political zone has not really stepped up activity in the run-up to 2023 and leading politicians like Senator Anyim, have pointed out that persuading other regions is now necessary.

He noted that producing the country’s president is not the right of the southeast. Speaking at the United for Better Nigeria Initiative National Convention in Abuja over the weekend, he urged his fellow Igbos to step up lobbying.

Senator Anyim said: “Is it right for the southeast to produce the next president? My answer is legally no, and the reason is that the constitution is clear, the constitution says every Nigerian of 40 years is entitled to aspire for that office.

“On the other hand, morally is it right? Is it an entitlement? I will say yes because the federal character principle enshrined in the constitution encourages rotation.

“The reason I have to make this clarification is that when the right you have is not legal, the only approach and the instrument you have is persuasion. So the approach, the language will be to persuade others to see reason with you that morally they should support you to take a turn since it rotates.”

Stakeholders from the southeast have been agitating for a Nigerian president of southeast extraction. They claimed that other regions have ruled Nigeria since the return of democracy in 1999, hence 2023 is their turn.