Igbo Diaspora Group Urges Ugwuanyi to Shun Zoning

Gideon Arinze in Enugu

As the 2023 general election draws near, a group of professionals on the platform of Nigerian American Political Forum (NAPF) has urged Enugu State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, to shun calls for zoning of the governorship ticket and provide a level playing ground for all eligible aspirants to contest.

The forum also stated that rather than focus on where the next governor would come from, the discourse should be centred on how to take the youths off the street with gainful employment or on agricultural revolution, industrialisation, general insecurity, persistent water scarcity, and power among others.

In an open letter to the governor signed by its Coordinator, Eze Sunny Udeh, and other members, the forum said by the end of the current administration in 2023, the three senatorial zones of Enugu State would have produced governors of the state.

It noted that going by economic and developmental indices, Enugu State is not where it should be yet, especially given both its potential and the human and material capitals it inherited as the capital of federating units and the defunct Republic of Biafra, hence the urgent need for a leadership that would mobilise public and private resources to rebuild the economic base of the state.

According to the forum, “The incessant contestation of sections of the state to produce political leaders is taking away the focus from the actual competencies and experience of potential leadership needed to take the state to a new height.”

The forum further stated that free and fair elections, the rule of law, the ability to vote and be voted for, as well as commitment to ethics in political dealings, which hinge on what democracy depends on, are unfortunately being threatened and drowned by intolerant rhetoric.

The forum urged the governor to ensure that his  political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), provides a level playing field for all the aspirants and ignore what it described as “the sycophantic, self-serving calls and exclusionary antics to impose an aspirant on the party and the people of Enugu State as other predecessors had done.

“While you reserve the right to endorse and campaign for an aspirant, which we expected you to have done long ago to forestall the prevailing confusion fanned by political operatives in the state, it cannot be at the exclusion of other aspirants or expense of democratic ethos and Igbo principle of live and let live.”

It called on the governor to shun the temptation to deploy the resources of the state directly or indirectly to support any aspirant in the primaries and general elections as such action would be in violation of relevant laws.