Monday, March, 16 2026 - A chieftain of the Niger State chapter of the Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof. Casmir Obialom, has called on Igbos to shun ethnic politics.
Obialom made the call on Saturday while delivering a keynote
address at the inauguration of new executives of the Niger State Ohanaeze
Ndigbo.
He lamented that the office of the President of Nigeria has
eluded the Igbo, partly due to ethnic politics.
Obialom, who is also the Special Adviser to the Governor’s
Special Adviser on Inter-Tribal Affairs, Chief George Dike, spoke with PUNCH
Online on the sidelines of the event.
He said, “What the Igbos should do is very simple. We should
shun ethnic politics if we must get to that level of national entitlement, that
is, the presidency. Igbos are naturally endowed. We have all the paraphernalia
to do any good thing. That is why they tell you that anywhere you go and you
don’t see Igbos, leave there. That statement does not mean that the Igbo man is
everything; it means that the Igbo man adds value to everything, but we should
exploit it.
“Why must we, anytime we hear that our brother is going into
politics for the presidency, create a different niche for Igbos? They will say
the Labour Party is for Igbos. You can never get a national appointment or the
presidency through ethnicity. You must be versatile and have a federal
inclination. You must join other ethnic groups. Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw, all of
them must come together to make you President.”
According to him, the presidency requires the support of
Nigeria’s diverse ethnic groups.
“It is these over 500 ethnic groups that you are coming to
lead as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. So the formula is simple,
just as we are doing in Niger State now. I am a member of the APC, not the
Labour Party or ADC. I am there because Governor Bago recognises non-indigenes
very well.
“For the first time, he created the office of the Special
Adviser on Inter-Tribal Affairs and appointed our brother, Chief George Dike.
Through him, other people got appointments too—coordinators, Senior Special
Assistants, Special Assistants and so on. That is political versatility, and
Igbos must adopt that if we must produce the President of Nigeria,” Obialom
said.
He also dismissed the notion that the contest for the
presidency is strictly between the Hausa and Yoruba, explaining that it has
historically been between the North and the South.
“Don’t say it is between the North and the South-West; it is
between the North and the South. The problem is that when they say North and
South, my Igbo brothers create another niche. We must align with the
South-West; it is very important.
“When we align, assuming they say the South should produce
the president and the South-West has had its turn, the Yoruba people will say
they have done their own and let it go to the Igbos. But that southern
disparity has been the problem. The North is largely united, but the South is
not,” he said.
Obialom added that the pursuit of the presidency should not
be limited to the 2027 election, stressing that politics requires long-term
planning.
“The issue is that it must not be 2027. Nigeria is not
finishing in 2027. In politics, you prepare. Those years I used to stay with
Olu Falae, he would say that the Yorubas give time to politics and project
their ambitions, and that is why they succeed.
“Look at Obasanjo and now Tinubu. Politics is not something
you do in a hurry. Even if you don’t get it in 2027, 2031 is still there, but
you must have a good action plan to get what you want. It must not be Peter
Obi; it can be anybody,” he said.
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