Politics
APC Is All Promises Cancelled – Ezeife
Academician, politician and retired permanent secretary, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife could well be described as a man who made a success of his endeavours as an academic having been a member of the faculty of some Africa’s leading universities including Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, University of Ibadan, and Harvard University. He subsequently joined the civil service where he retired at the apex as a permanent secretary. Following his retirement, he joined politics and on his first try was elected governor of Anambra State on the platform of the defunct Social Democratic Party, SDP.
An unwavering voice for an egalitarian society, Dr. Ezeife in this interview gives his assessment of the state of the nation, the Igbo race among other national issues.
Excerpts:
There are people with the view that if the country is restructured, it may lead to disintegration, what is your take?
The only thing that assures the disintegration of Nigeria is the non-restructuring of Nigeria; I want you to know it and tell the world that those of us who love Nigeria are the people talking about restructuring. I will give you a paper I did on the basis for unity where I talked to few that to maximise the welfare of Nigerians, we need to restructure Nigeria and make sure that justice works in Nigeria.
We have six geo-political zones; we have six protocol offices; President, Vice President, Senate President, Chief Justice, Speaker, Secretary to Government. If we have six geopolitical zones, we should expect at least one of those positions to go to each zone. Because of injustice and marginalisation, the South East does not share in any of these, not even the least, Secretary to Government was given to South East.
The South East is largely absent from the budget of Nigeria, largely absent from the list of new employments in Nigeria. But the South East dominates the list of people removed from office in Nigeria. I am not talking about the killings, massacre of youths of the South East in various parts of the country.
So, how have Ndigbo fared in President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration regarding appointments and allocation of resources?
The summary of the situation is that Buhari’s administration has been pushing the South East, Ndigbo out of Nigeria that is why they ignited IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) MASSOB (Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra) with more zeal and more and more people are talking about being on their own.
I told you something, but they are more. When Buhari started recruiting officials, he recruited more than 40 new officials without one South Eastern person there.
I have told you about the protocol positions and geo-political zones. There were people earmarked for some headships like NIMASA, Civil Defence, and those people were supposed to be Igbo, but as soon as Buhari took over, they were dropped, and other people were chosen.
Today we know the population of Ndigbo is not small, but today the National Security Council of Nigeria will be meeting without South East being represented. It is clear that our government has no accommodation for South East.
Vanguard
