Global campaign for Igbo President takes off in Awka, as Ezeife begs Tinubu, others

Chukwuemeka Ezeife, former Governor of Anambra State, has said that the people of the Southeast will “go on their knees to beg other zones,” ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
Ezeife said the Southeast will beg other zones if it becomes the condition to actualise their ambition to produce the next president of Nigeria in 2023, NAN reports.
Speaking on Monday in Awka during the launch of Global Movement for President of Igbo extraction in 2023, the former governor also urged people like Bola Tinubu, National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to jettison their presidential ambition in 2023.
The former governor regretted that the southeast remained the only zone to produce a president since the return of democratic rule in Nigeria.
He appealed to other geopolitical zones to support the clamour for a president from the southeast in 2023 for fairness, equity and justice.
“We are using this medium to call on people like Alhaji Bola Tinubu and others from the north nursing the presidential ambition to have a rethink,” Ezeife said.
In a related development, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Monday dismissed reports that he is “secretly” opening a presidential campaign headquarters in Abuja.
Tinubu, who denied making such a move, stressed that he was currently focused on helping President Muhammadu Buhari to deliver on his mandates.
It was reported that the APC leader, “quietly” opened his campaign Headquarters in the Maitama area of Abuja, ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
The report claimed that a member of the House of Representatives, James Faleke, was a key coordinator of the campaign office.
However, Tinubu, who spoke through his Media Aide, Tunde Rahman urged his supporters to join him in supporting Buhari’s administration.
He, however, said followers of the former Lagos State governor who want him to run for the office of the president may be behind the said office.
“His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has not even declared his intention to contest the 2023 presidential election let alone opening a campaign office. He has repeatedly said 2023 is still some years away and that he is at present focused on helping President Buhari to deliver on his mandate as he is doing and coast home to victory.
“That is his position. But you know also that many of his friends, associates and supporters who feel he is eminently qualified for the presidency and has done excellently well to advance our democracy and want to see him contest for the top job are doing everything on their own to see this happen.

“I don’t know the office you are talking about, but it may just be one of those things these people are doing to get Asiwaju Tinubu to do as they wish. And I think they have a right to advance the course they believe in. Asiwaju’s appeal, however, is they allow the present government to concentrate on the good job it is doing and allow the matter of 2023 to take care of itself in the fullness of time,” he said.