Politics
Again, South East decries marginalization, urges Tinubu to end Igbo exclusion
The South East geo-political zone has expressed concerns over what it describes as severe national neglect, often referred to as marginalization. This issue, which has been affecting the Igbo people since 1966, continues to persist to this day. Consequently, they have called on President Bola Tinubu to address the deliberate exclusion of the South East zone from national affairs.
Dr. Uzo Onye, the national president of the South East Emancipation Movement (SEEM), stated in a press release in Owerri, Imo State, that the Igbo nation has faced marginalization since 1966, and it is crucial to put an end to this for the sake of peace, unity, and progress.
“Our records indicate that Igbo marginalization began in 1966 during General Yakubu Gowon’s regime. He formed his Supreme Military Council (SMC) without adequate representation for the Igbo people. As a result, Nigeria functioned with a total disregard for the Ndigbo,” he remarked.
“The worst occurred on May 26, 1967, when Gowon created 12 states and confined the entire Igbo nation to one state, while establishing two states for the then Eastern Minorities. Subsequent heads of state and presidents have continued Gowon’s policy, often exacerbating it. We are calling on President Tinubu to put an end to the marginalization of the Igbo people,” said Onye.
Chief Chekwas Okorie, a prominent Nigerian politician and founder of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), has consistently advocated for Igbo liberation within the context of national integration. He has often stated, “Nigeria, as currently constituted, is anti-Igbo. This is a fact, as the evidence is clear for all to see. In terms of state creation, the South East has the least representation with only five states, while the South South, South West, North Central, and North East each have six, and the North West has seven. This represents a significant disadvantage.
“In constituency delineation, the South East has only about 45 representatives out of 360. The situation is similar in the allocation of senatorial districts, where there are just 15 senators from the South East in a chamber of 109 members. Additionally, there are fewer than 100 local government areas in the South East out of a total of 774 across the federation. This highlights the extent of Igbo marginalization.
“We have raised this issue repeatedly. It is now time for action from both sides. The Igbo people must reassess their political philosophy, while the Federal Government of Nigeria should acknowledge the significant contributions of the Igbo to the nation’s development and work to end the marginalization of the South East.”
There is a consensus among Ndigbo that at no other time in recent history had the the South East been marginalized than in the Buhari/Tinubu APC national government. A member of SEEM, Kelechi Njoku, collaborated this when he stated this: “It can be said that the South East had it hot the moment President Buhari came to power.
“Buhari built additional six new federal universities, including an army and transportation institutions, and he never brought one to South East. He constructed billions of naira railway lines and not a line crisscrossed the South East. He had 16 security chiefs twice in eight years, making it 16 in the least, and none was Igbo. As a matter of fact, in Buhari’s second tenure, the South East was not the president, not the vice president, not the president of senate and not the deputy senate president. Buhari’s government had no Igbo as speaker, deputy speaker and not even the chairmanship position of the party was considered good for an Igbo to supervise”.
Njoku revealed that as it was with Buhari so also it is with the Tinubu presidency. He argued that the common demand at the lips of every sensible and responsible Igbo now is the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. According to him, the moment Kanu is released, peace, order, and sanity will return to the South East and security will be returned. “We have asked Present Tinubu who was a human rights activist himself to release Kani from detention. But so far our pleads have fallen on deaf ears”, Njoku said.
A commentator and online television presenter, Afam Echi, is more worried about the high level of killings, notorious kidnappings, and unimaginable ritual activities currently going on unchallenged in the South East without the Federal Government paying any attention.
Echi sought to know why President Tinubu should extend the tenure of a police inspector general whose tenure has ended at the detriment of an Igbo deputy inspector general and others who ought to have taken over from the current IGP. He also queried the number of Ndigbo in the hundred of appointments Tinubu has announced in almost two years. He concluded by insisting that Ndigbo are right in maintaining a marginalization status in President Tinubu’s administration and called for a redress.
