An All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain and former governorship candidate in Imo State, Uche Nwosu, has condemned Pastor Tunde Bakare’s statement on the chances of the South-East region to produce the next president.
Bakare, the presiding Pastor of the Citadel Global Community Church, Lagos, had during an Instagram live session with Dele Momodu, said the South-East does not have the numbers yet to produce a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction.
According to the cleric, “Yes, every citizen of this country can aspire to that position regardless of ethnic personality and I will be too glad to see an Igbo president. But let us always remember that democracy is a ruthless game of numbers and if you don’t have the numbers, you cannot continue to shout marginalisation.”
Nwosu, who was responding to the statement, said that no zone in the country could single-handedly produce the President of the country without the support of other zones.
He warned against the use of words that could further incite ethnic agitations, adding that the South-East would collaborate with all other zones in the country in its quest to produce the President in 2023.
According to Nwosu, even former President Olusegun Obasanjo did not have the numbers from the southwest to emerge President when he was elected in 1999.
He said: “We should be guided with our words as no zone can produce a president alone. The Igbo is open to collaboration with other zones to produce the president in 2023. More so, no zone can boast of producing Nigeria’s president without input from the rest of the zones.
“Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo never had the numbers from the West when he was elected. We should not further incite ethnic and religious agitations through our utterances, especially people we looked up to as political or religious leaders.”
