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•APC planning to ensure Obi isn’t on ballot
•Why Ooni can’t be permanent leader of Southern Traditional Rulers Council
The President of the Indigenous Igbo Youths Congress (IIYC), Chief Mayor Echefu, has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of working to ensure that Peter Obi is not on the ballot for the 2027 election.
According to him, Obi has become a nightmare to the ruling party.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the Igbo youth leader noted that the notion of Southern Traditional Rulers Council with the Ooni of Ife, as permanent chairman is not acceptable by the Igbo, as it is meant to make the race look subservient to the Yoruba.
He pointed out that if such a body is necessary, the chairmanship should be rotational.
The build up to 2027 has started. Parties are holding congresses and conventions. What are your expectations?
It is not starting on a sound footing. Some people are already seeing it as war; attacking, intimidating and threatening opponents or people who do not share the political or ideological beliefs.
Members of the opposition parties have been attacked where they were meeting. In Edo State, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has threatened fire and brimstone to anyone who dares mount billboard or paste posters of any other party, except the APC and President Tinubu. Also, Sunday Igboho has warned other presidential candidates not to campaign in Yoruba land. Even this musician, they call Portable or what, has equally said any presidential candidate, except Tinubu that campaigns in Yoruba land is taking a big risk. While all these incendiary statements are coming out, the security agencies – DSS and Police are pretending to be deaf. You would see them swing into action if these inflammatory statements were made towards the ruling party. Does this country still belong to everyone?
I pity the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Joash Amupitan because the ruling party is going to rubbish his hard earned reputation. If I were him, I would not allow them to use me they way they used my immediate predecessor.
When the National Assembly was amending the Electoral Act, Nigerians had expected that the transmission of results in real time from the polling units was going to be a strong point, but it was not. What is your take on this?
The lyrics of a popular Ghanaian musician says – ‘No be you say you be Oga, na why you dey run…’APC claims to be the master, why are they afraid. Tinubu says he is the master strategist, why has the fear of 2027 election taken over him. The bill was sent to him, and in less than 24 hours he hurriedly signed it into law. APC controls more than two thirds of the members of the National Assembly, and they resisted the wishes of Nigerians to have real time transmission of election results from polling units. The party says it controls 30 states out of the 36 states in the country and yet, they were afraid of real time transmission of election that would make rigging very cumbersome, and ensures the credibility of the election. The party knows that if the election should be rigging-proof, before 12 noon on the election day, Tinubu would have lost the election because of the nadir of his performance.
Tell me what Tinubu would use to campaign? His reforms have pauperised Nigerians. He has set the country on edge; mutual hatred among various ethnic groups is at an all-time high.
The electoral act has given them the leeway to comfortably rig the election, but God is watching them.
With 31 governors out of 36, some political analysts are of the opinion that Tinubu has already won his re-election even before the day of the election. What is your view on this?
Those political analysts are probably members of the APC. It is part of the propaganda they are employing to hoodwink the people. They are just pouring water on the back of a duck; Nigerians are wiser. They claim to be the champion, and yet are afraid of fair contest.
The 2027 election is not against APC and ADC or Labour Party or any other party. It is the Nigerian masses versus APC, the party that has dehumanised the people; made Nigerians to eat bread of sorrow. Many Nigerians go to bed without knowing where the next meal will come from. When travelling from one state to the other, your song would be: ‘Guide me o Thou Jehovah…’ because of kidnappers and armed robbers lying in wait, and the deplorable state of the road. What would be Tinubu’s campaign message be?
He has already told Nigerians on what to do. During his electioneering in 2023, he told us emphatically that if he fails to provide electricity, that we should not vote for him if he comes for re-election. That is where Nigerians are standing on.
Those political analysts seemed to have forgotten what happened in the 2023 election, where APC had 22 state governors, Tinubu won about 12 of those states. PDP had about 12 governors, Atiku won about five or six of those states. Peter Obi, the LP candidate, had no governor and won 12 states. He won Abuja, and also Aso Rock; and also Lagos, where Tinubu is the alpha and Omega; defeated Tinubu in his ward and polling unit.
We know why the governors defected to the ruling party. It’s just to take refuge because their alleged cup of corruption is full and running over.
Leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, who has been jailed, is still a major issue in the South-East. Is there anything your group is doing towards his release?
I’m telling you authoritatively that Nnamdi Kanu would soon be released. HRM Igwe Lawrence Agubuzo of Enugu State at the 2026 National and Religious Leaders Summit in Abuja, made a case for him in the presence of Tinubu, and you saw the ovation that greeted the request.
Most Nigerians have realised that jailing Kanu was a miscarriage of justice. His case could have been resolved politically, but for reasons best known to them, they chose the legal option.
We have been meeting with some prominent people across the country, who have the ears of Tinubu, and we are getting assurance that he would be released. We are not limiting our efforts just in Nigeria; we are also exploring the international community. The efforts we are making are shrouded from most of the South-East political leaders because they can’t be exonerated from Kanu’s ordeal. Probably, Tinubu may want to make a political capital out it. So, we expect Kanu’s return soon.
Igwe Agubuzo also raised the issue of Southern Traditional Rulers Council, where the Ooni of Ife is the permanent chairman, and the Eze Aro, HRM Orji is pushing it in the South-East. What is your position on this?
The notion of a Southern Traditional Rulers Council with the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi as permanent chairman is not acceptable by the Igbo. The traditional institution in Igbo land is at variance with that of the Yoruba. Such an idea is bizarre. If it wasn’t meant to mock the Igbo, and to make the Igbo look subservient to the Yoruba, why didn’t any of the Igbo traditional rulers become the chairman?
The Aro traditional stool dated far more than the Ife. Eze Aro IX, His Eminence Eberechukwu Oji that is marketing this in the South-East ought to be well-informed on this matter. We are with HRM Igwe Agubuzo on this issue.
The rationale behind selecting a permanent chairman is unclear. It would have been clearer if it was made rotational.
Unlike the north, the south’s heterogeneity might make such a council unfeasible without a rotational chairmanship.
If the Ooni is to hold the position permanently, it would imply the subjugation of other southern regions to the Southwest. Such a structure, as proposed, should not stand.
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The Igbo nation has its own worldview. Our traditional institutions are not subordinate to any other ethnic monarchy in Nigeria. Each kingdom in Igbo land is autonomous and answers to its own people and ancestral heritage. Entering into a broader council where one monarch is designated as permanent chairman raises serious concerns about hierarchy and imbalance.
Traditional leadership is rooted in sovereignty. Every traditional ruler is supreme in his territory. Making one ruler permanent chairman over others symbolically places him above them. That sends the wrong message and risks reducing the autonomy of other kingdoms. That’s practically how the Sultan of Sokoto reigns as the supreme monarch of the North. We reject such for Southern Nigeria.
Let cooperation exist, but let sovereignty remain untouched. Let respect be mutual. And let every kingdom retain full control over its ancestral mandate.
Of all the presidential candidateS and aspirants, who is the choice of the Igbo?
There is something most Nigerians don’t know about the Igbo. Igbo don’t vote out of sentiments; they vote based on who they feel has answers to the myriad of problems confronting the nation.
Igbo will go for Peter Obi not because he is one of them, but because he has the magic wand to fix this country.
In 2003, Muhammadu Buhari chose Dr Chuba Okadigbo as his running mate. Okadigbo was a very loved and cerebral Igbo politician, but Igbo voted for Olusegun Obasanjo because they knew Buhari hadn’t anything to offer. In 2007, Buhari contested against Umaru Yar’Adua and picked Edwin Umeezuoke, a former Second Republic speaker of the House of Representatives, and another respected Igbo man as his running mate. And again, Igbo rejected Buhari because he didn’t have anything to offer Nigerians.
In 2011, Buhari contested against Goodluck Jonathan, the Igbo voted Jonathan. In 2015, Buhari contested against Jonathan, Igbo voted for Jonathan, but the South-West ganged up with the core North and brought in Buhari. Between that time and when Buhari left office in 2023, Nigeria kissed the canvas. We were vindicated for rejecting Buhari because we knew he wasn’t capable.
Buhari’s only mission was to empower his Fulani brothers and to embolden the herdsmen. He took nepotism to a notch higher. Under him, bandits and Lakurawa terrorists group sprang up in the North-West; Fulani militia held the Middle Belt on its jugular, while Boko Haram operated with little resistance.
In 2023, the ethnic sentiments and the ruling class working hands in gloves with the INEC chairman, brought in Tinubu. He has elevated nepotism to an incestuous level. Both those that voted out of sentiments and those that voted rightly are gnashing their teeth. They have started again in 2027.
Obi is never an Igbo candidate; he is a candidate accepted by every part of the country.
More so, the youths who have realised that the country belongs to them are yearning for him to fix the country because the other candidate or aspirants are coming to despoil the nation the more.
What of if Atiku Abubakar instead of Peter Obi gets the ADC ticket?
In the first place, Atiku would have ended his political career on a shameful note because Tinubu would defeat him hands down. He would be seen as a greedy politician. The zoning arrangement doesn’t favour the North. It was his greed that killed PDP, when he insisted on contesting, when power was supposed to rotate to the South.
However, any party that Obi pitches his tent with, the Nigerian youths would follow him, as well as the Igbo because he has what it takes to take Nigeria from this dunghill to a place of honour. Obi is APC’s nightmare. The ruling party is doing everything to make sure he is not on the ballot.
During the last Yuletide, fire engulfed the Great Nigeria Insurance House, Balogun Market, Lagos, and razed warehouses and shops of Igbo traders, and burnt to death three siblings and two others. The federal government didn’t even show concern, but last month, an inferno burnt part of Singer Market in Kano, and the same federal government sent delegation and donated N5 billion and APC governors donated N3 billion to the victims. What do to say to this?
Have you seen the reason for the agitation for Biafra in the South-East? You treat the same Nigerians differently. It smacks of hatred for the Igbo by the Tinubu government.
The irony of the whole thing is that when this injustice is carried out against the Igbo, the so called Igbo political leaders become blind, but would be trumpeting how they would give Tinubu 80 per cent vote in the South-East because of his love for the Igbo. That is absolute balderdash.
You see the jamboree in the South-East by the so-called City Boys Movement. They have seen or heard of their brothers who suffered great losses, while some were burnt to death where they were to eke out a living, but they won’t look towards their direction because their mandate is to disturb the peace of South-East.
I’m yet to hear of City Boys Movement in the South-West, North-Central, North-West, North-East and South-South. So, there are no boys in the cities of those regions? It is only in the South-East that you have the Movement? We the village boys are waiting.
The Iran-Israel-US war has led to global oil crisis. In Nigeria, the price of petrol is about N1, 400, depending on the location. What should the government do make sure that it doesn’t impact negatively on Nigerians?
It is at a time like this that you know the type of government you have in this country. A leadership that is worth its onions would be coming up with measures to cushion the effect of this hike in the price of petrol that has affected the cost of living.
Nigerians shouldn’t expect much because this government doesn’t show any sympathetic response to the suffering of her citizens.
Cost of fuel is very high and public power supply in this country is at an all-time low. Where are the CNG buses they promised after they removed fuel subsidy? They may come up with a palliative programme of dashing out 10kg bag of rice to each family.
The situation in Nigeria was already bad and has become worse with the Iran –Israel-US war.
The government should come up with genuine programme to address this new level of suffering so that Nigerians will be alive to vote in 2027.
The CNG buses should be massively rolled out. It is not a bad idea if government should subsidise fuel. After all, we have never seen the benefits of fuel subsidy removal since May 29, 2023, because the government is deeply borrowing here and there. So, where are the savings from subsidy removal?
Jonathan was subsidising fuel and Nigerians were breathing, but Tinubu removed subsidy and the citizens are suffocating.
