Just In: Igbo Nation deserve the Senate President, despite voting opposition, Orji Uzor should get it – Chijioke Paul Okeifufe.
DESPITE OUR LOVE FOR OPPOSITION POLITICS, THE IGBO NATION DESERVE THE SENATE PRESIDENT AND ORJI UZOR KALU IS THE RIGHT CHOICE
It is no longer news that we love drenching our region into toxic and hateful political opposition and turning back to blame the country for being against us.
President Buhari picked Late Chuba Okadigbo and Late Umezuoke in the 2003 and 2007 presidential elections, respectively, as his running mates, but we failed to support him on these two separate occasions when he picked Igbos.
In 2011, he picked a Yoruba, Pastor Tunde Bakare and scored his highest votes (6 million votes) for the first time.
After then, he found out how trifling the votes of the South-Easterners are to his presidential bid and he decided to try another Yoruba man.
In 2015, he picked another Yoruba man, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, and he won with the support of the Yoruba people.
While all these were going on, in the South-East, we were busy giving the PDP all our support and demonizing the APC members because Goodluck Jonathan from Bayelsa State, South-South Nigeria, lost his bid to win the 2015 presidential election.
In 2015, the Igbos have a 99% chance to produce the next senate president in the person of Senator (Dr) Chris Ngige of Anambra State, but the people of Anambra worked against his return to the senate and used a PDP female candidate to oust him. Stella Odua was given the mandate and we lost the golden opportunity to produce the senate president.
But in Bayelsa State where Goodluck Jonathan came from, in the same 2015, the APC produced a House of Assembly member, Honourable Israel Sunny Goli.
Hon. Goli is from the same senatorial district as President Goodluck Jonathan. Despite that Goodluck just lost the presidential election the previous week Bayelsans gave him votes to win a seating Deputy Speaker of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly.
In 2019 (4 years later), an APC candidate, Senator Degi Eremienyo, won the senatorial seat of the Bayelsa East Senatorial District and became the senator representing former Goodluck Jonathan.
In the same year, Hon. Goli migrated to the House of Representatives. And another house of representative member, Hon. Preye Influence Oseke, emerged from the Southern Ijaw axis of Bayelsa State.
Several House of Assembly Members came out from the APC that same 2019 in Bayelsa State.
Towards the end of 2019, the APC produced a governor which was truncated by the court of law.
Bayelsa State which was directly affected have moved on and embraced the ruling party – APC.
But sadly, the Igbos that benefited nothing from the PDP’s inglorious years of misrules are still brooding over the ousting of the former ruling party from the seat of power.
Throughout the 8 years of President Muhammadu Buhari in power, we are still hating him and hating the Hausa/Fulanis and Muslims because of him.
Now that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has won the 2023 presidential election, we have diverted all our hate to the Yoruba people.
Instead of building political bridges, we are busy destroying the bridges and at the same time expecting the people to erect political bridges for us to get political power.
People have started jostling for the seat of the senate president, but a host majority of Igbos are presently against the brightest senator that we have to clinch that position because he is a member of the political party that they hate so much.
Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, the former governor of Abia State has the brightest chance to become the senate president in the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
I have seen a couple of social media posts where some persons believed that Igbos do not deserve the senate president because they gave the president-elect an insignificant number of votes.
The number of votes from the Southeast may seem insignificant to the physical eyes but every single vote from Igbo land is worth a million votes.
It is presently suicidal to be an APC member in the South East.
Every Igbo man or woman that campaigned and cast his or her vote for the APC deserves national honour for resilience and bravery.
On the night the APC governorship candidate of Enugu State, Chief Uche Nnaji (Nwakaibenya) was attacked. I was about 5 minutes away from being attacked too because I wanted to join his convoy.
I missed joining his convoy. And about 5 minutes after calling him to know the area he was heading to, he was attacked by unknown gunmen that were enforcing the no-election order in the South-East. Two people in his convoy received gunshot wounds.
The Igbos have all it takes to produce the next senate president as compensation for the loss of lives and properties of an uncountable number of APC members in the whole of South East.
This is the time for the Igbos to come together and support Senator Orji Uzor Kalu. He is politically focused, bold, sincere and resilient.
He has proven to me that he is a man of his word in my different encounters with him. But above all, his love for Nigeria and the Igbo people is undying.
With Orji Uzor Kalu as the leader of the senate, President Tinubu will rule with ease and Nigeria will progress in love and unity.
~ Chijioke Paul Okeifufe