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The South-East is
one of the major political blocs that will decide who emerges
victorious in yesterday’s presidential election. Going by the recent
registration of voters conducted by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC), the zone, which comprises five states namely
Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia, and Imo States, has a total voting
population of 7.1 million.

Although the
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is the predominant party in the zone
judging by its strength, there is considerable presence of other
parties as well. These include the Congress for Progressive Change
(CPC), the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Labour Party (LP),
Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), and the All Progressives Grand
Alliance (APGA).

The APGA, which
controls the government in Anambra, is still perceived in political
circles as a party for the people of the zone.

Of all the parties,
however, only three, PDP, ACN and CPC, presented candidates for
yesterday’s election, thus making their candidates, Goodluck Jonathan,
Nuhu Ribadu, and Muhammadu Buhari, the major contenders for the votes
of the people.

Mr. Jonathan, however, appears to be far ahead of his CPC counterpart in terms of popularity.

The reasons are not
far-fetched. First, four of the states, namely Enugu, Imo, Abia, and
Ebonyi, are ruled by the PDP while Anambra is governed by APGA, which
has since adopted Mr. Jonathan as its presidential candidate.

But secondly, and
far more important, is the eagerness of the zone to produce Mr.
Jonathan’s successor. The president, at the height of the zoning
controversy last November, pledged to spend a single term of four years
if the PDP wins the current race, although, in accordance with the
controversial zoning policy of the PDP, the national chairmanship of
the party was zoned to it in 2007.

Party leaders in
the zone are backing Mr. Jonathan in the belief that the zone will
produce his successor in 2015, when the president, if he wins the
current contest, is expected to round off his tenure.

This belief is
buoyed by the fact that 45 years after one of its own, Johnson
Aguiyi-Ironsi, was assassinated while in power as a military head of
state, no Igbo has ruled the country.

Non-partisan support

At a crucial zonal
meeting convened by the party in Enugu last Thursday to strategise for
the presidential poll, the vice chairman of the party in the zone,
Olisa Metu, reiterated the need to deliver over 85 per cent of Igbo
votes to Mr. Jonathan, stressing that it was only by so doing that the
zone would be relevant in the coming dispensation.

Those present at
the meeting, which lasted for about five hours, were former Senate
president, Anyim Pius Anyim; deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu;
chief whip of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha; Ayogu Eze
and Uche Chukwumerije, senators; Enyinnaya Abaribe; Andy Uba, a
senator-elect; the minister of labour, Emeka Wogu, and his health
counterpart, Onyebuchi Chukwu, among others.

“As you are all
aware, the victory in the National Assembly election will be empty if
President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan is not successful in the
presidential election on Saturday, the 16th of April,” Mr. Metu told
the meeting.

“This is why we
have come here today, to strategise on how best to galvanise massive
support for our president in the election. We must not only win the
entire south-east, we must win convincingly,” he added.

The national vice
chairman noted that following the acceptance of the PDP presidential
flag bearer in the southeast zone, the zonal chapter of the party will
have to ensure that voter apathy does not occur.

Mr. Metu also asked
party members to be vigilant and ensure that the atmosphere is devoid
of violence, in order to allow people to come out and vote. The message
was not lost on party faithfuls, who in turn assured him of working
hard to deliver the zone to Mr. Jonathan.

Interestingly, the
struggle for the Igbo to produce the next president has assumed a
non-partisan bent. The Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the main Igbo socio-political
organisation, for instance, has joined the fray. For over five months,
it has not only canvassed support for Mr. Jonathan, but also reportedly
held meetings with the PDP candidate, a development which at some point
threatened its unity.

In an advertorial
signed by its president-general, Ralph Uwechue, last week, the
organisation enjoined Ndigbo to vote massively for the PDP candidate.

“The die is cast.
D-day is Saturday 16th April, that is the day every eligible voter
nationwide is called upon to perform his or her patriotic duty in the
ardent quest for good governance, political stability, and sustainable
unity in our great country,” Mr. Uwechue said.

“Ndigbo are
requested to fully recharge our spirit of ‘Igbo Kwenu’ and with ‘Ofu
obi’. Vote Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan and Namadi Sambo as
president and vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, come
Saturday 16th April, 2011,” he said.

Batos Nwadike, one
of the four presidential candidates of Igbo extraction that withdrew
from the race to support Mr. Jonathan last Wednesday, said he was doing
so because of the call by the Ohaneze Ndigbo that every Igbo person
should support the presidential ambition of Jonathan.

“I cannot afford to be the odd one out,” he said.

The other three are
Peter Nwagu of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Godwill Nnaji of
the Better Nigeria progressive Party (BNPP), and Lawson Igboanugo of
the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).

The Igbo
organisation has expectedly also drawn support from other notable
organisations in the zone, including Aka Ikenga, Ndigbo Lagos, Izu
Umunna, and the South East leaders (SEL).

The most vociferous
is the SEL. Like Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the group has not only canvassed a
president of Nigeria of Igbo extraction, but the return of the
chairmanship slot of the PDP to the zone after the sudden resignation
of Okwesilieze Nwodo last January. This, it believes, can be achieved
if the entire Igbo back Mr. Jonathan in the presidential election.

Led by a former
governor of Anambra State, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, the group insists that
at any given opportunity the time is ripe for an Igbo to lead the
country since it has only done that once in the last 50 years of the
nation’s independence.

According to Mr.
Ezeife, the quest for a president from the zone has become a moral
issue which other zones should support. He explained that while other
zones of the country have produced former presidents and heads of
state, who ruled for many years, the only one produced by the south
east, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, only ruled for six months.

“A south easterner
ruled this country for only six months and after he was killed, his
kith and kin were massacred in large numbers thereafter,” he lamented.

The former governor
also argued that if Nigerians truly believe in the unity of the
country, it is only logical to support the aspiration of the Igbo race
to produce the next president.

Game of numbers

Perhaps, all this
informed the large votes the PDP secured during the National Assembly
elections on April 9. The party won 13 out of the 15 senatorial seats
available in the five states of the zone, leaving only one, Imo East
for APGA, while the result of Anambra Central is still disputed. Even
so, the opposition parties are still crying foul that the PDP’s victory
is attributable to malpractices and vote buying.

But there are those
who believe that the fortunes of the Igbo will be brightened under Mr.
Buhari as president in the next dispensation. For those in this
category, it will also be practically impossible for Mr. Jonathan to
hand over to another southerner in 2015, assuming he keeps his promise
to leave after one term, when northerners are still ferociously
agitating to occupy the exalted seat.

CPC governorship candidate in Enugu, Osita Okechukwu, is one of these.

At a recent press
conference in Enugu, Mr. Okechukwu reminded his kinsmen that not only
will presidential power easily shift from a northern Buhari to a
southern Igbo man, after his (Buhari) single term in 2015, the problems
of the zone will be better addressed by the CPC candidate.

“To salvage lost
ground, there is an urgent need for Ndigbo to join others and deny the
PDP our votes in this Saturday’s presidential election,” Mr. Okechukwu
said.

“Ndigbo, in
thinking out of the box, we must critically assess all the options, who
among the candidates will best serve the core Igbo interest and indeed
that of Nigerians as a whole,” he further said.

The CPC
governorship flag bearer said Mr. Buhari is the best bet for the Igbo,
describing him as “a man of uncommon integrity, uncommon transparency,
and uncommon humility, who approximates more than any other candidate,
whom Ndigbo and indeed the progressive bloc, should conveniently align
with.”

Although he is currently working for Mr. Jonathan’s election, a
former president of the Senate, Ken Nnamani, who had backed the
ambition of former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, and later
that of former vice president, Abubakar Atiku, also was of the view
that the Ndigbo may have miscalculated as, according to him, Mr.
Jonathan is likely to hand over power to the north instead of to his
kinsmen in 2015.