From Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
A leader in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Zeribe Ezeanuna, has joined the race for the November 6 Anambra State governorship election.
Declaring his intention at the Onitsha Holiday Resort, Ezeanuna said his ambition is powered by the youth of the country, saying ig is their turn to govern.
Flanked by a legal practitioner, Jezie Ekejiuba, Director of Information and Legal Matters for Zeribe Ezeanuna Campaign Organisation, (ZECO), among other supporters, Ezeanuna said he would declare a state of emergency on education, technology, agriculture and healthcare if elected governor.
He also promised to reduce the monthly security vote due to the state governor from N1.5 billion to N500 million, lamenting that the short-lived food blockade by northern farmers was an eye-opener pointing towards local agricultural self-sufficiency.
He said those who witnessed the Biafra-Nigeria civil war in the late 1960s would recall the menace of kwashiorkor, the aspirant promising to mobilise and galvanise the people to take up farming in order to become self-sufficient in food production and achieve food security.
‘If I am nominated by the PDP and elected as governor of Anambra State, my administration will set up the following commissions and make it to be self sustaining: Technology Acquisition Commission, TAC; Parks and Markets Development Commissionb, PMDC; Traditional Rulership Commission, TRC, Independence of Ndi Igwe; Enterpreneurship and Apprenticeship Commission, EAC; Anambra State Federal Service Commission, ASFSC; Diaspora Commission, DC; Banking, Insurance, Investment and Stock Market Development Commission, BIISMDC and Political Leadership and Democratic Institution Commission, (PLDIC),’ the contender for governor declared.
He also opposed the position of the national leadership of the party that there would be no zoning of 2023 Presidency, declaring that it is the turn of an Igbo to be President of Nigeria, blaming the stoking of anti-Igbo prejudice as frustrating the ambition.
Ezeanuna bemoaned the current state of Igbos in Nigeria, pointing to identity crisis as the biggest challenge facing an average Igbo today.
‘Shortly after the civil war and victory was awarded to the other side, Nigeria, we came back in the spirit of “No Victor, No Vanquished,” for full re-integration into Nigerian society, but they wouldn’t take that,’ he said.
The governorship aspirant said he would ensure that local vigilante groups and police have all they need to deal with security challenges in Anambra, stressing that there would be no need to invite the army into the state or approve any shoot on sight order against the civilian population.
He emphasised that ‘it is the turn of the Igbo man to become President and we cannot accept anything other than that; either they allow the Igbo man to be President or there’ll be no Nigeria.’
Ezeanuna, who is from Achina in Aguata local council, from where there are calls for a power shift come 2022, however, opposed the idea of a power shift in the state, saying it limits people with competence in governance.
Ezeanuna indicated that he would work towards the release of all political prisoners of conscience in the South-East, including IPOB, and MASSOB and other Biafran activists.
According to the one-time young NADECO/PANDEM activist in 1998, the ‘Nigeria government has adopted deception as an act of governance; unitary system of government disguised as federal system of government and democratic system is simply different in the sense that the outcome of actions are predetermined, even before the first ballot us cast against the will of the people.
‘The more we pushed to be part of Nigeria, the more they turn us away. When we introduce ourselves as Igbos, they tell us, No, we’re Biafrans. The conspiracy had become such that the younger generation especially has been inspired to challenge the conspiracy against the Igboman. Whatever you aspire in Nigeria, they want you to deny your Igboness, they want you to claim that you are de-tribalised. They want you to deny leaders like Nnamdi Kanu. But they’re not telling the President that he is supposed to be de-tribalised in any form or shape and be the President of the whole Nigeria instead of the North alone. As you know, the President is a Fulani man and 90 percent of his appointments were given to his Fulani ethnic group.
‘The problem with Nigeria existence remains both the conspiracy against Ndigbo on the basis of Biafra for those of them that want to make the divide permanent. Nigeria is too small a country for Ndi Igbo to roam around. What the Igbo man is asking Nigeria to do is to be treated as equal, level the playing field and to accept equal diversity as a guiding principle otherwise called restructuring in Nigerian polity.
‘I support the clamour for restructuring as a way to de-radicalize the Nigerian political system and make citizenship the most important status. No more state of origin, place of origin, place where your father originated from, state of worship and all those attributes that retard black man’s progress and development,’ he said.