AWKA — In the Southeast, it is sad but we don’t have the numbers to effect any National Political Stand. Zik’s Political alliances and negotiation skills abound in his written works. They may be useful if we study them. You can’t get political power by clamour. We can’t get it either by sitting in the Southeast and pontificating. When Force moves a distance, Work is Done. This is a time-tested principle of Elementary Physics.
The Retired Generals that have a stake in this country have just made a political statement in favour of the South East. What are the persons named in their statement doing within the political platforms they intend to contest under? Within the Southeast, what and who are our trump cards?
How many full-time National Politicians of the stature and influence of Tinubu, Atiku, Kwankwaso etc, do we have in the Southeast? How many are crisscrossing the nation seeking alliances and cooperation for the upcoming conventions of various political parties? Go back to the voting figures of previous Presidential Elections, is the Southeast politically indispensable to the voting population?
Any serious-minded Presidential Candidate with the support of the Southwest and the Northwest can become President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without a vote from the Southeast. To be relevant in national political calculus, we must come out and politically or sit back what we are doing now and take what comes to us. You don’t negotiate national political power by noise making. Politics has a lot to do with Mathematical realities.
The reality at the moment suggests that there is nobody contesting for the Presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from the Southeast. Perhaps, with the exception of Sen. Pius Anyim who has not secured the nod of any Geopolitical Zones including the Southeast and maybe Prof. Kingsley Moghalu which political alliances heavily needed for a third force has not been ascertained.
Others are waiting to be invited and installed because it is “our turn”. Even if the entire Southeast vote for one of us in any of the major political parties, our Candidate will still not win unless a major coalition takes place on the grounds of the Convention. Recall the Jos debacle and Alex Ekwueme which was the nearest we ever got to the seat. The North changed its mind right there with the manipulation of the Retired Generals led by IBB.
As of today, we are too far away from the contest. But, I enjoy the fantasies on various platforms by our people, while hoping that we will just move beyond the rhetoric and advance towards negotiating national political power in 2023.
He is a Technical Assistant to Governor Willie Obiano’s Special Adviser on Legislative Matters, whoonce was a Special Adviser to a former Deputy Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly. Ebuka is a second class upper division graduate of Political Science from University of Calabar, Calabar Nigeria and holds a Masters Degree in Political Science with specialization in Government and Development Studies, from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Nigeria
