Tony Nnadi, LNC,
30 November 2022

As Campaigns for 2023 Presidential Elections gathered momentum, the Governor of Anambra State Prof Chukwuma Soludo, for inexplicable reasons, dismissed as worth next to nothing, investments made for Anambra State by a former Governor of the State, Mr Peter Obi who is the presidential candidate of Labour Party for 2023 Elections.

Incensed by those comments, supporters and sympathizers of Mr Peter Obi, particularly the Obidient Movement bandwagon descended like a swarm of bees upon Governor Soludo from all angles, home and abroad.

Rattled by the widespread umbrage and backlash, Soludo, poured fuel into the fire when he wrote a lengthy epistle dismissing Peter Obi’s bid for Nigeria’s Presidency in 2023 as self-deceit on the part of Mr Peter Obi, positing further that the Igbo must first queue behind any of the other frontline contenders in the 2023 electoral round and from there, build the alliances necessary to launch a more viable bid for the Presidency of Nigeria after the 2023 electoral round.

The said epistle ignited an animated altercation amongst the Igbo Worldwide even as Mr. Peter Obi downplayed the episode by challenging Professor Soludo to do better for Anambra than trader Peter Obi.

For the Lower Niger Congress (LNC), the first thing that jumped out starkly from those exchanges was the fact that the Igbo Collective has not distilled anything that could be described as a consensus for the future of the Igbo in failed Lugardian Experiment of 1914 because while the Igbo political elite seem fixated with taking their turn at political power in Nigeria, the populace is adamantly committed to Self-Determination and extricating Igboland from the bondage of Unitary Nigeria.

Such a consensus would have been the arbiter between the disparate propositions flying around Igboland regarding the way forward for the Igbo at this time in Nigeria; in particular, BETWEEN the bourgeoning SELF-DETERMINATION Campaign that has been raging like wildfire across Igboland in the last two decades and championed by the younger Igbo generation, AND the so-called “IGBO PRESIDENCY” pursuit which though diametrically opposed to the Igbo SELF-DETERMINATION Campaign, is common-ground between Chukwuma Soludo and Peter Obi even as they differ on the timing for that gambit. In other words, both Chukwuma Soludo and Peter Obi subscribe to the Unitary Nigeria defined by the 1999 Constitution and only differ on the question of the timing for launching the bid for Igbo turn at presiding over the criminal enterprise that Nigeria is, under the rogue 1999 Constitution. 

As the dust raised by the altercations between Governor Chukwuma Soludo and candidate Peter Obi begins to settle, it is pertinent to observe that the only important outcome of the exchanges is that it has clearly exposed the fact that the aspirations and pursuits of the Igbo political elite are completely detached from and in fact diametrically opposed to the aspirations and pursuits of the Igbo populace.

At a time an overwhelming majority of the Igbo populace is striving to retrieve their hijacked SOVEREIGNTY and therefore searching frantically, in Self-Determination, for a way out of the evil forest and Union of death that Unitary Nigeria has become for its trapped constituent components including the Igbo, it is inconceivable that the Igbo political elite would be so totally obsessed with the pursuit of Political POWER in Nigeria by way of their “Igbo Presidency” gambit which does not in any way address the  constitutional shackles by which the Igbo have been rendered slaves in their homeland and even being slaughtered and expropriated with impunity.

On the one hand, having previously posited publicly that the engine of the Nigerian State (i.e. Constitution) is knocked and that what Nigeria requires is a new engine or new vehicle and not a new driver (ie President of Nigeria), it is most astonishing that candidate Peter Obi launched his campaign for the Presidency of Nigeria by declaring that the Constitution of Nigeria is not the problem with Nigeria and that the problem is simply bad leadership. 

Candidate Obi followed this volte-face on the subject with an express and unwavering commitment, made at Arewa House Kaduna, to PRESERVE and GOVERN by the 1999 Constitution. 

By the postulations and prescriptions of his aforementioned epistle on Peter Obi’s presidential bid, Soludo suggests that the future of the Igbo lies in chasing after the Presidency of Nigeria after the 2023 Elections, even as he dismissed Peter Obi’s candidacy for 2023 Presidential Election. 

It can be said without equivocation that Prof Chukwuma Soludo in that epistle was speaking for himself and not for the Igbo that is overwhelmingly and self-evidently in search of Self-Determination and Liberation at this time from the bondage of Unitary Nigeria.

To compound matters and as if echoing the sentiments expressed in Prof Soludo’s epistle, a certain faceless “Coalition of Anambra Youths” came out in the social media November 29, 2022, to declare amongst other things that:

“If Obi truly loves Ndigbo, he should step down forthwith and strategise with other well-meaning Igbo elite in charting a way forward for the Igbo nation. 

We repeat, the presidency is not won on the premise of wishful thinking and hullabaloo of an untamed mob, who probably do not even understand the need for a pathway for the Igbo nation, pushing for a new narrative for the Igbo nation.

If Peter Obi is being asked to drop his presidential ambition and join the campaign for fundamental Constitutional Reconstruction that will free the Igbo and other constituent components of Nigeria from the toxic bondage of Unitary Nigeria, that will be much better understood, but in pointing to a post-2023 better timing for the so-called Igbo Presidency, Soludo is simply discussing what many concerned Igbo commentators now view as his own political project and not any Igbo political project.

Some of the commentators even go as far as suggesting that Soludo is trying to derail Peter Obi’s 2023 bid in order to pave the way for himself to take the Igbo shot at the Nigerian Presidency after his tenure as Governor in Anambra State. 

The concern of the LNC and the reason for this Rejoinder is to point out clearly to our people that if Peter Obi or any other Igbo candidate wins the Presidency of Nigeria in 2023 or 2027 under the 1999 Constitution, he will swear to, and govern by the 1999 Constitution. That means that the 1999 Constitution which shackles and enslave the Igbo will remain the basis of the Union and governance of Nigeria and so, while a few Igbo political merchants may make some fortunes and fame, the subjugation and situation of the Igbo in Nigeria, including the existential threats fueled by the Unitary constitutional arrangements and the Caliphate Conquest Agenda that imposed it, will remain intact while the danger of complete conquest and extermination hang over Igboland.

Neither Peter Obi’s 2023 Presidential pursuit nor Chukwuma Soludo’s prescription for a post-2023 timing for Igbo Presidency chase represent the Igbo priority at this time.

NOTES:

Aladimma Epistle 2012 is a call, and the Framework and Roadmap for all Igbo and Igbo groups to unite for the common cause of regaining Igbo Sovereignty and Self-Determination.

Aladimma Epistle 2012 – can be found in the Archives section of this website, it is item No.13 there.