Former Director General of Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, and Nigeria Ambassador to the United States, George Obiozor, has said that Igbo Presidency is not the only solution to the growing calls for an independent state of Biafra.
According to him, Igbo Presidency can only bring about solutions to the Biafra agitation, if the leader who emerges is impartial, altruistic, and unbiased.
The diplomat also pointed out that Nigeria is better united and urged the leadership of the country to restructure economically, politically and culturally.
Obiozor further advised the Federal Government to engage Igbo and Arewa youths who have been issuing quit notices and ultimatums in a useful discussion for a more united and prosperous country.
He told Vanguard: “Who told you that if an Igbo man becomes president, there will be no more agitations. If the Igbo man is partial, if the Igbo man is parochial, if the Igbo man is biased, then the people will also vote against him. What Nigeria needs is a great leader, a good leader.
“In fact, Nigeria has reached a point where the leadership of the country is not determined by where you come from but your ability in terms of what you can offer to the country, what you can do.
“If a leader is good, you don’t even ask where he comes from. Countries that have good leaders don’t even bother about where the leaders come from. But when a country has a problem such as we have and nothing is being done as quickly as possible as a response to the national crisis, then what do you think the people would do?
“I believe Nigeria should be restructured, and I’m talking about political restructuring here. Restructuring has become imperative in Nigeria. We must do that in order to remain one united country. The problem is that the federalism that Nigerian leaders used in getting the independence, that formed the constitution which the governments at different levels were using to operate after independence, was dropped.
“That constitution that gave regions the legitimacy and the authority to act was wiped out by military interregnum, because the military could not operate the federal system of government. The military believes in the command and the unitary system and dropped the constitution which the regions operated and this has been the continuous feature of Nigerian governments since the civil war. Every regime has tinkered with the idea of restructuring Nigeria to make it governable and more harmonious to peaceful co-existence among Nigerians.
“At Independence there was unity but the unity recognised diversity and that is the federal system, where the regions were autonomous and were contributing to sustain the federal government with about fifty per cent of the resources they had. Their authorities and development priorities were with them, they developed at their own paces and each of them had principal products that they were distinguished with.
“If you look at those who want resource control, it is clear that you cannot produce 100% and be given 13% and even at that 13%, you are being assaulted, abused by those who contribute little or nothing to those resources. That is the issue in Nigeria and that is what restructuring will address. Restructuring will make Nigeria more politically acceptable to the generality of the people and more stable.
“The issue here is that some are asking for restructuring, some are asking for self-determination and others are asking for secession and these have their own reasons. In fact, the problem Nigeria has today, North, East, West or South is the youths. The youths are saying that what their fathers are able to endure, they will not endure.
“So, they are fighting. Whether you are talking about IPOB or MASSOB in Igboland, these are young men who were not even born at the time of the Nigeria-Biafra war and the situation that caused the civil war at that time is still here with us and it’s bothering them.
“These youths are therefore saying that what their parents and grandparents endured, they cannot endure and they want to fight it. They are looking at their own present and future generations. That is why it is no longer an easy business for MASSOB, IPOB, Arewa boys or the Oodua Peoples’ Congress, (OPC).
“The truth of the matter is that the older generation is losing control of the youths. Like every generation, they want to fight to solve their own problem.
“The elites determine the destiny of any country. There are some incoherent elites that we have. These incoherent elites cannot even take care of their own interests, let alone take care of the interest of their own people. That’s why there is a vacuum created in the system. It’s really managed from the top by leadership.
“We need the leadership that is right, we need the leadership that is strong enough, fair enough, transparent enough and nationalistic enough to hold the country.”
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