Obasanjo’s letter to Jonathan danger signal, says Chukwumerije

Chairman, Senate Committee on Education, Senator Uche Chukwumerije,

yesterday described former President Olusegun Obasanjo's open letter to President Jonathan as a sign of looming disaster.

Chukwumrije in a statement last night said a second term for Jonathan is necessary to foster a sense of participation of all ethnic components in the administration of the country at the highest level.

He warned that never again will the Igbo nation allow itself to be made a sacrificial lamb in the nation's political history.

He described as alarmist Obasanjo's warning that the military is being primed for "possible abuse and misuse... for unwholesome personal and political interest..."

The statement reads: "For System Nigeria, a period of almost half a century of silent ostracisation of a group in political wilderness should be enough of a part of the total reparation exacted from Ndigbo since the end of the civil war.

"This major ethnic nationality has never produced an elected President of Nigeria. Still on the future of Nigeria (and specifically fate of Igbo ethnic nationality) in the dark shadows of new but predictable hazards of replay of ancient systemic uncertainties.

"The lengthy loud ambiguities of our Delphic Oracle reek with offensive smells – innuendos of betrayals and lurking disasters, of cyclical visitations of ignored history, of clear blinks of danger signs from 1966 milepost.

"When such an alarm comes from a revered leader, it is an invitation to a ship wreck from familiar quarters. Predictably, rehearsed but hollow threats of impeachment was a logical fall-out of the alarm. Timely counter threats of treasonable felony followed."

He added: "We must avert this disaster. For Ndigbo, System Nigeria can never make us again the sacrificial lamb of its fractured history. Never again.

"If to foster a sense of participation of all ethnic components in the management of Nigeria is the prime purpose of rotation of the presidency, the formal acceptance of the current six-zone structure, (the successor to the former regions), should be the most effective mode of implementation of the formula.

"A second term for Jonathan is important to establish this necessity. This gives to the federal edifice the solid foundation."

The lawmaker noted that the turbulent history of Nigeria suggests the six-zone format as a "dialectical necessity in the current phase of our nation-building."

He said the formula would bring all the sectors of the federation nearer to a level playing ground.

He stated that "the reference to dialectical movement is to the history of the dynamics of power relationships among regions, ethnic blocs and under-girding hegemonies.

"The direction of Nigeria's political evolution since 1962 has been the inexorable pace of disintegration of hegemonic strongholds in favour of progressive democratisation of the political space.

"Seen from this view, a second tenure for Jonathan is a necessity. It strengthens the precedent of a six-zone structure and reinforces a new convention/formula that adopts this rotation format for the Presidency as the recipe of national stability."

He lamented that a major ethnic group like Ndigbo have since independence been excluded from Nigeria's elected presidency.

He said: "The official name of the competition rule is 'democracy is a game of numbers'. But the buzz code of the System is 'exclusion of the Igbos for the meantime'.

"Obasanjo has allegedly said as much a long time ago, warning that it was an insult to the System for Ndigbo to expect access to the presidency in less than 100 years from end of the civil war.

"OBJ's choice of use of regions as rotation units to warehouse manipulation of selection of presidential materials gives credence to this allegation."