What Igbo want from Buhari is confab report implementation –Uzomah

South-west zone President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prince Nathaniel Uzomah has said that what Igbos need most from the incoming administration of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is the implementation of the 2014 National Conference report. He also spoke on other national issues.

Excerpts:
The elections have come and gone and a new president would be sworn in at the end of the month, what are the expectations of Igbos from him?
Igbos as a people are not asking for gold or silver from Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. We are not making any special demand or asking him for preferential treatment. What Igbos want from him, I am sure is also what the other well meaning Nigerians want from him which is the implementation of the 2014 national conference report. The report contained all that we need to move this country forward and Igbos as true Nigerians want the report of the conference to be implemented because it would be to the benefit of all. The 1999 constitution which all of us have agreed is a huge fraud should be discarded and replaced with the National Conference report. In fact, the implementation of the report would mark the beginning of any meaningful change in the country. Any other change apart from that would be mere sloganeering, cosmetic or even postponing the evil day because before the country would move forward, it needs to be restructured. We cannot make any headway under the current system even if the best administrator in the world comes to lead Nigeria. What a lot of people have not realized is that the problem with Nigeria is systemic rather than individualistic. Therefore, before we can make any headway, this corruptive system must be restructured.
How do you think that Gen. Buhari would listen to this since Igbos did not vote for him?
If you check what I said earlier, I did not make any selfish demand. What I said is what would help his administration to run smoothly. But on what you said that Igbos did not vote for Buhari, I don’t know how you came to that conclusion because what we did was secret ballot. I did not know whom you voted for and you don’t know whom I voted for. As the president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo south-west zone, I am always in contact with the other zones of Ohanaeze in the country and I am aware that some Igbo groups in the North endorsed and voted for Buhari. Even here in the south-west, those that Jonathan Campaign Team treated with disdain voted for the General. There were also a good number of Igbos who have personal love for him and they voted for him. There is no way all the Igbos would vote for a particular candidate because our brains are not remote controlled from a particular source. If there is any ethnic group in the country that likes freedom to express itself, it is the Igbo because it is in our nature as republicans.post by expdonaloaded.blogspot.com
Apart from the implementation of the national conference report, are there other things you want him to do for the Igbos?
The implementation of the national conference report is not an Igbo agenda. It is a pan Nigerian agenda. So, if it is implemented, it would benefit all the component parts of the country. Some sections of Nigerians have got used to free cheques, free handouts. They have got used to being given fish instead of learning how to fish. This is the bane of our development. This has killed the spirit of industry, it has killed the spirit of enterprise, it has killed the spirit of creativity, all of which Igbos are noted for and this could be the reason we appeared to be in the forefront of the agitation because it is harming us the most. It is a system that is very alien to us. We need to start doing things differently before we can expect different results and this is one of the things we would gain if the report is implemented. Today, the office of the president has become a do-or–die affair. It has turned out to be the most prized and the most coveted office in the whole world but if the report is implemented, the office would become less attractive. This would reduce the tensions that run to the brim every four years. So, apart from the report, we want the in-coming administration to do the following, place priority on security, corruption, education and health. Security operatives should be well taken care of .For the Igbos, we want him to do the following in Igbo land, complete the on-going second Niger bridge, rehabilitate the Onitsha- Enugu and Enugu –Port Harcourt expressways, construct an international seaport in Onitsha and bring to reality the additional one state which was unanimously approved at the national conference.
What agenda can you set for the new governors in the South-east?
I am happy that all the governors that we have now in the South-east are people I may call e-governors, which means they are in tune with the age we are now. Another thing that I am happy about is that all of them are relatively young so we expect to see youthful aggression in tackling the myriad of problems facing the Igbo nation. The first thing that I expect them to do is to unite the Igbos. Elections have come and gone. They should put aside party differences and work together as brothers. I want to say without fear of contradiction that Igbo land has got all it takes to be a super economy. The only set back is the inimical system that we are operating. The resources in Igbo land, if exploited would transform Nigeria from a third world nation to a first world country. Even, we should not expect people from Abuja to come and build flyovers and roads across Igbo land. These are what we can do for ourselves if the governors should come together and form a united regional economy...post by expdonaloaded.blogspot.com.. They should try to focus more on job creation and youth employment. That Igbos is itinerant by nature is not exactly true. What is chasing us out of Igbo land is because there is no infrastructure that would enable us realize our life ambitions or to develop our full potentials in Igbo land? If there were structures that can take care of the teeming Igbos in Diaspora in Igbo land, most of us would have preferred to have the headquarters of our businesses in Igbo land while the branches would be outside Igbo land but because of lack of enabling environment, the reverse is now the case. So, I am appealing to the new governors to try to create structures that would not only keep the youths there now from migrating outside Igbo land but also make those outside to come home to contribute to the development of Igbo nation. Another important thing is that the new governors that are the governors of Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu States should know that government is a continuum and as such they should try to inherit the uncompleted projects of their predecessors and make sure that they are completed before they start new ones. This would bring to an end the issue of abandoned projects,
How do you see the crisis at the national level of Ohanaeze?
The truth is that there is no atom of crisis at the national level of Ohanaeze. Chief Gary Enwo -Igariwey is the undisputable president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo worldwide. What you saw as faction or crisis was that some old men were bribed to come out of retirement to cause disunity in Igbo land during the just concluded elections. So, what transpired then was just politics and now that the elections had come and gone, you would see they would fade into the past where they rightly belonged. The tenure of Chief Igariwey is never in doubt. The Ohanaeze constitution under Late Ambassador Raph Uwechue was amended from two years to four years. That was why Uwechue served for four years and Igariwey who was his deputy also served four years as deputy to Uwechue.
After Uwechue, Igariwey won the election and became the president and since then there has not being any amendment to Ohanaeze constitution with regard to tenure. So, from where did these old men whose pre-occupation at this point of their lives should be thinking of how to go to heaven and how history would remember them came up with the claim that Igariwey’s tenure has expired. A boy who is young enough to be their grand son gave them money to create crisis and cause division in Igbo land for the benefit of his political party and they felt that they could turn day light into darkness even with the video evidence of the amendment of the Ohanaeze constitution under Uwechue. So, we are not bothered one bit. The election is over and their ranting’s would soon die down
You have spoken about history, how would history remember President Goodluck Jonathan?
President Goodluck Jonathan is the luckiest man in modern Nigerian. History would no doubt rank him alongside Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Martin Luther King Jnr. of the United States and Ghandi of India. In 2010 when he was running for the office of the president, it was clearly stated that he was ordained by God for a special purpose and I want to say that he has fulfilled the purpose of that ordination. 2015 is the year it was predicted that Nigeria would dis-integrate but it took one Goodluck Jonathan to seamlessly make nonsense of the prediction. He displayed that he was a man of peace, a man of integrity and a man who puts the interest of the country far and above his personal ambition. His philosophy that no blood of any Nigerian is worthy his ambition has made him one of the rarest breeds in the world. Watch out for this, he would be the next recipient of the Noble Prize for peace.
What then is ydvice to Igbos
My advice to Igbo is that they should continue to be one. They should try to be united and be ready to give the in-coming administration their full support. We are not known to play spoilers game so whether they say that we are now in the opposition or not, let us try to contribute our own quarters towards the success of the in-coming government.