…Says: “Imo, Enugu, Ebonyi persons will not listen to themselves”
A former Minister of Works, Adeseye Ogunlewe, has said the inability of the people of the South-East geo-political zone to come together under a leadership would hamper their chances of producing a president in 2023.
Ogunlewe, who spoke on a television programme yesterday, advised the Igbos of the South-East region to invest in party politics in order to stand a good chance at the next general election.
The former Alliance for Democracy (AD) Senator in 1999, maintained that the way to stand a chance in the 2023 presidential contest is to be actively involved in party politics.
“Another set of people that are appropriate are the people from the South-East, but they have the problem of leadership”, said Ogunlewe, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in 2019.
“They are so endowed that they are spread all over Nigeria and they can gather a lot of votes, but they are too divided. An Imo person, an Enugu person, an Ebonyi man will not listen to themselves.
“They have the money. If they sit down and aggregate what they can offer, they have more money than almost everybody in Nigeria. But have you seen one person from the South-East that said: ‘I am interested in the presidency, I will start to campaign all over Nigeria immediately, raise money for me?’ and influence the structure of the party?”
Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, some of the prominent names that have come up as likely presidential aspirants from the South-East include Peter Obi and Rochas Okorocha, former governors of Anambra and Imo states respectively, and Governor Dave Umahi, of Ebonyi State, among others.
Last June, Kingsley Moghalu, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and ex-presidential candidate, officially declared his intention to run for president in 2023.
