Soludo to Igbo Leaders: Forget Obi, Negotiate Kanu’s Release, Other Conditions with Tinubu, Atiku
By Kabir Akintayo
Governor of Anambra state, Professor Charles Soludo, has appealed to Ndigbo leaders to enter into agreement with the two leading Presidential candidates, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of All Progressive Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), for the release of Nnamdi Kanu.
Soludo in a long piece he wrote about Obi’s ambition said Igbo can negotiate the release of Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), who is in custody of the Federal Government, with the two leading candidates who perhaps, from all indications and statistics, are sure to emerge first and second in next year’s elections.
The former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, in a lengthy write up titled “History Beckons and I will not be Silent (Part 1)” outlined many benefits the Igbo can achieve through negotiations rather than being an antagonistic towards the federal government and other parts of the country.
Soludo noted that supporting Obi in 2023 will not do the southeast zone any good since he is not likely to win the election.
He said: “It is not too late for Ohanaeze Ndigbo and progressive Igbo leaders to pre-emptively start charting a pragmatic future for Ndigbo in Nigeria after the elections.
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“Armchair social media analysts can have the luxury of fantasizing with wild speculations. Right or wrong, they earn their pay and with no consequences. For us as leaders, the lives of tens of millions are at stake. We have a historic duty to act and being silent or politically correct is not an option. For starters, Ohanaeze should study the report of my committee (planning and strategy) in 2019. It may still be relevant today.
“Second, Ndigbo should seriously study the MoU signed at the Yar’Adua Centre in 2010. The leader of Igbo Political Association, Chief Simon Okeke, and our members are still there.
“Thirdly and for me, Ndigbo should strategise and bargain especially with the TWO candidates likely to be president on at least four central issues:
A) Lasting peace and security in the South East, including the release and engagement with Nnamdi Kanu.
B) South East Economic transformation agenda and the FGN’s Marshall Plan for the South East as promised since the end of the Civil War (the post war ‘reconstruction’). We appreciate the Second Niger Bridge and recent contract for MTN to reconstruct the Onitsha-Enugu expressway. But the rail-lines to the five state capitals, speedy access to the sea, highways linking South East to the North and South South, addressing our existential threat as gully erosion capital of Africa, Free Trade and Export Processing Zones, etc.
C) Restructuring Agenda for Nigeria that devolves powers/resources to the subnational entities and in which it would no longer matter where the President comes from.
D) Levelling the playing field for the unleashing of the private sector and the full participation of Ndigbo in the economic and governance space; etc.”
