As the race for 2023 presidential election goes on, Director General of Voice of Nigeria, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has opined that a President of Igbo extraction will put an end to the agitation of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
Okechukwu who made the statement during an interview with ThePunch, appealled to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC to consider zoning the 2023 presidential ticket of the party to the Southeast to enable the geopolitical zone produce the next president.
Reacting to a statement credited to the Senate Chief Whip, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu who said he will consider to contest if the APC zone the ticket to the Southeast.
Okechukwu said; “We are all on this same page lobbying the leadership and membership of our great party to honour Ndigbo with Nigeria’s President of Igbo extraction.
“It will be the end of the civil war and end of IPOB (the Indigenous People of Biafra).
“Indeed, Nigeria’s President of Igbo extraction will be broadminded and continue the physical and agrarian infrastructural revolution of President Buhari.
“We have been involved in the development of everywhere in the country and this tempo will definitely accelerate if given the golden opportunity.
“We are true patriots who reside and invest wherever we live. Everywhere is our home and it is incumbent on us to develop wherever we live.
The VON DG also called on president Muhammadu Buhari to release the leader of IPOB, he said Kanu’s release will douse the tension and reduce insecurity in Southeast.
“I still plead for his release or political solution on the condition that IPOB changes gear. I am worried over this insecurity. It breeds economic stagnation and diminishes democratic growth. I am not a supporter of IPOB’s tactics and strategies,” Okechukwu said.
Speaking on the Igbo to come together and produce a single candidates, Okechukwu said he believes that since it’s a democratic dispensation, people should be allowed to exercise their rights.
He said; “To be frank, one won’t oppose that. In fact, I will be the happiest if Ndigbo in APC and PDP present one candidate each. It falls within the best model with regards to 1999, when Chief Olu Falae and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo slugged it out and in 2007, when two Fulani slugged it out.
“The reality is that when Alhaji Shehu Shagari contested in 1979, he was not the only northerner; there were Aminu Kano and Waziri Ibrahim. When President Buhari contested in the 2014 presidential primary election, there were four other northerners too.
