••• SAYS REGION NEEDS CRITICAL THINKERS
The former Lawmaker who represented the Ezinihitte/Mbaise Constituency in Imo State House of Assembly, in the Third Republic, Hon Oliver Enwerenem, has advised the people of the South East to stop the blame game as a fallout of the Presidential primaries of the ruling all Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
The former lawmaker urged leaders of the region to avoid taking decisions without a proper analysis of the strength and weaknesses of the zone.
Enwerenem who made the comment in a statement on Thursday urged the region to focus on the challenge to get into the mainstream of critical political decision making in the nation’s politics.
The former State Coordinator National Poverty Alleviation Programme (NPEP) in Imo State further enjoined the political elite in the zone to note that the South West would not be inclined to back the Igbo in fear of being displaced by zone.
This according to him, explains the prevailing tendency in the South West that zoning the Presidency to the South automatically translate to zoning to the South West, same for the Fulani and the North.
He said that what the South East needs were thinkers with deep analytical capacity stressing that the tagging of some people as saboteurs is inimical to the interest of the zone.
He cautioned that the tendency to tag some people with good intentions for the region would only draw it back to the days of the civil war when many brilliant sons of the region were executed for expressing differing opinions.
He recalled that if the great Igbo Leader, Dim Odimegwu Ojukwu could join the then ruling National Party of Nigerian, NPN, it could be taken to mean that he must have reconsidered some of past decisions.
He said, “This is one of the best points made concerning the predicament we are facing . If after some years of the civil war, when Igbo had lost everything in Nigeria, Dim Ojukwu came back to join the NPN, it means he probably had reconsidered some critical issues and steps of the past.
“We must avoid taking decisions without proper analysis of our strength and weaknesses. The major problem we have is how to get into the top of Nigerian political decision making hierarchy.
“Our Southern neighbors, the Yorubas don’t want us to be President because of the obvious fear that we might displace them. This explains why they believe that , zoning to the south means zoning to them, just like zoning to the North means zoning to the Fulani.
“What we need in the South East are deep thinkers. Condemnation and tagging some people as saboteurs, when they mean well, will be drawing us back to the civil war days when some brilliant Igbo sons were executed because they held different views.”
He urged the younger generation to avoid costly hasty actions but to display the expected discipline to study the past and properly project the way forward.”