A former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe has urged the All Progressives Congress, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to field a presidential candidate of South-East extraction.
Okupe in a letter to Abdulahi Adamu; APC National Chairman and Iyorchia Ayu, his PDP counterpart and all the delegates of both parties said that marginalization and political oppression of the Igbos is real.
The letter reads in full:
I write this letter with all sincerity, patriotism and humility.
In the wake of the National crisis following the deaths of Chief MKO Abiola and Gen Sanni Abacha, very notable leaders in the country especially from the north and majorly of the military background came together and decided to assuage the Southwest and ensure national unity and stability, the southwest must be allowed to occupy the position of President in the country.
And so it happened that the two leading political platforms at that time chose their presidential candidates from the southwest. By so doing, a major national concession was made and inevitably and democratically a Yoruba man, Olusegun Obasanjo became the president of Nigeria.
In all the schemings and persuasions that went on behind the scenes nationally, the Yorubas did not participate. In fact, mainstream Yoruba took a hard-line position which was even antithetical to the stabilizing concessionary process that was underway.
Today Nigeria stands at a similar crossroads. The fact of Igbo marginalization and political oppression is self-evident.
Political parties will in a few weeks elect their presidential flagbearers. Many arguments for and against the Igbo presidency, power rotation and merit and demerits if zoning is rife in our polity.
In all this, the guiding philosophy ought to be, what is True, what is just and what is equitable. Rather what we have are puerile and self-serving propositions and assertions.
It is the truth that the established convention is that power must rotate between the North and the South. Not between the zones. Hence a President of northern extraction follows that of Southern extraction and vice versa.
Any consideration outside of this is foul and untrue.
It is just that after President Buhari, power must come to the south. Any argument against this is inimical to the unity and stability of our nation.
It is equitable that once the above stands and power is conceded to the south, the next president must come from the South East. This is because in the South only the southeast is yet to produce a civilian president.
Fellow Nigerians, let us come together as the fair and just nation that we are. Let us concession the presidency to the southeast in 2023 and decisively end the Nigerian Civil War forever.
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Omooba Dr Doyin Okupe.
Lagos. 10th April 2022
