Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on National Assembly Matters, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga has said that the igbo people will vote for President Goodluck Jonathan if he eventually declares his interest to be re-elected into office in 2015.
Edeoga had told Journalists during an interview in Abuja recently.
He said that he has a sincere believe that a majority of the Igbo will vote for Jonathan considering his scorecard in office and for the sake of continuity.
Edeoga, a former spokesman of the House of Representatives also said it is however in the strategic interest of Nigeria that Jonathan might seek a second term in office.
Asked how this might affect the chances of the Igbo people to win a presidential election as claimed by former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor kalu, he noted that Orji Kalu can speak for himself or any platform of his, but not on behalf of Igbo people neither can I speak for the rest of the Igbo people.
“The Igbo are wise enough to cast their votes where they feel they are best protected”, he stated. Adding that people are entitled to their opinions so far they fall within the ambit of the law.
“Orji Kalu and people who share his views can also test their popularity”, he added.
He noted that a strategic rotational presidency, as practised by the Peoples Democratic Party, is a necessary Nigerian invention to address Nigeria’s differences. It seeks to build a homogenous national entity.
Edeoga further inisisted that if Jonathan serves his second term, it will go to any other zone where it has not gone at least in the current democratic dispensation. It can go to the South-East or the North-East.
“If rotational presidency is adopted, the acrimony that goes with the contest will be eliminated.
“Rotational presidency will also address the issue of some people who feel that they are entitled to some political offices in this country. There are also some people who feel alienated from Nigeria because they feel there is a particular limit they can aspire in the Nigerian polity. Rotational presidency will create a conducive atmosphere where every Nigerian can aspire to become president”, he explained.
Commenting on the declaration of Governor Sullivan Chime that an Nsukka man will succeed him as governor of Enugu State, he said there is also an emerging convention about rotation of the gubernatorial position.
“It started from Chimaroke Nnamani who did two terms for the Enugu-East senatorial district and then Sullivan Chime, who is currently the incumbent, and about to round off his two terms in office. He is from the Enugu-West senatorial zone.
“The next place that it has not gone to is Enugu-North. It is also in tandem with what I am saying that we should follow this emerging convention. Things evolve. Personally the Nsukka cultural zone is being short-changed because it constitutes over 50% of the population of the state. Nsukka should be the one to give because they have the numerical strength to determine where the pendulum of the state should swing. It was done in the early 90s during the Babaginda transition, he analysed.
He decried the intention of some elements in the country, mainly from the North-West and the South-West who he claimed are bent on truncating the emergence of rotational presidency as a convention.
“It is an evolving convention. A convention is also a legal precept. A convention practised overtime becomes not really a law in terms of written, but acceptable by everybody”, he explained.
“The position of the South-West in this matter is understandable but not excusable. The South-West, under Obasanjo, had its turn of eight years. The South-West governors, under the platform of the Alliance for Democracy, created an enabling environment for Obasanjo to complete his second term.
“If the rotation endures, it will return to the South-West when other zones had done theirs. There are elements in the South-West who will not allow this scenario to play out. They were the same people who relinquished their gubernatorial positions for Obasanjo.
“Today they have evolved from the Action Congress of Nigeria to the All Progressives Congress. They now agitate that the presidency is up for grabs.
On the alleged deportation of the Igbos from Lagos, he said that nothing in the governor Babatune Raji Fashola’s history indicates that he is headed in that direction.
“I have a lot of soft spot for Tunde Fashola, so I don’t want to make negative comments about him, more so with some restraints he has shown in this matter. It is evident that he has realised that he has erred.
“So people are entitled to their mistakes once in a while. It is not a reason why we should create loopholes for rabble-rousers to begin to build mountains out of a molehill.
“It is not only in the South-West that the Igbo have become migrants, they have become migrants all over the world because the home environment is no longer in consonance with their entrepreneurial abilities and drives” he noted.