The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos. Most Rev. Alfred Adewale-Martins has said that it would be justified to zone the Nigerian presidency in the 2023 General election to the Southeast.
Speaking as a guest at the ongoing 2021 Catholic Women Organization of Nigeria (CWON) in Lagos, he said that for the sake of equity and justice, the president should come from the Igbo-speaking part of the country.
Addressing newsmen at ST. Leo’s Church, Ikeja, Lagos, venue of the event, Adewale-Martins said that other zones of the country have had their fair share of the highest political position, except the southeast zone.
The gospel preacher called for true federal structure as a remedy for the unending agitations for self-actualisation by various ethnic nationalities that make up the country.
“There is nothing wrong with the federal system of government as stipulated by the founding fathers, but the way it is being practised in the Nigeria polity is the deformity of the society.
“If well practice it well, it is meant to engender healthy competition by the federating units, just as we see it being practised in the US where we copied it from and others.
“The disenchantment of the citizens to the state from time to time speaks volumes of our dysfunctional system of federalism laced with the Nigeria factor as against the true practice,” he said.
The Archbishop called on the nation’s political actors, the political parties, and the civil societies to save the country from unwanted upheavals by ensuring that somebody from the southeast of Igbo extraction becomes the president in the next dispensation.
He regretted that much innocent blood have been spilt as a result of the imbalance that negates true federal structure.
He charged the women to galvanize themselves and use their numerical strength to change the narrative and see a woman aspire beyond being presidential candidate of a party to becoming the president of the country.
He added that leadership recruitment processes of the political parties are faulty as they end up propping up persons whose characters do not conform with peoples’ aspirations. He called for a change of the process to enable good persons to emerge as flag bearers.
