By Dr Chinedu Jideofo-Ogbuagu,
South-East APC Integrity Group, founded in 2015 to help sanitize and grow APC in the South-East for the purpose of the geopolitical zone bidding for Nigeria’s Presidency in 2023, launched its South-East APC Presidency Project 2023 in January 2020.
Structured in three phases – Phase One, Phase Two and Phase Three – in our Project design, we scaled through Phase One of the Project after successfully ensuring that the next elected National Chairman of APC would come from the North.
Not only is the current President of Nigeria on APC platform from the North, the next National Chairman of APC will also come from the North. By all permutations, therefore, the 2023 presidential ticket has been technically zoned to the South. No one should expect APC to be more emphatic than that, given that zoning is not in APC’s or Nigeria’s Constitution.
We have since January 2020 – through massive advocacy – also contributed immensely to the new mood of all six geopolitical zones of Nigeria for emergence of President Buhari’s successor from the South-East.
In any case, we are not afraid of fighting it out with any ill-advised individual(s) from South-South or South-West (or even from the South-East) who might challenge our Project’s preferred aspirant/candidate of South-East extraction on APC platform at APC’s 2023 presidential primary convention.
So, tactically and technically, our Project seriously influenced virtual zoning of 2023 APC presidential ticket to the South-East geopolitical zone. This became apparent in January 2021, one year into our three-year Project, and virtually confirmed in July 2021 – after 18 months of or halfway into our entire Project duration.
However, after the first one year of our Project duration, it became necessary for us to move into Phase Two of the Project, that is, identification of best possible presidential aspirants and selection of our preferred aspirant/candidate from our list of best possible presidential aspirants on APC platform.
We started the process of identifying and selecting the best presidential materials of South-East extraction on APC platform in June 2021 with nominations of 17 South-Southerners, including Peter Obi who was not even APC but could be persuaded to join APC if he became preferred.
We did the first and second online ballots for them, the second ballot involving 75-person electoral college (15 of the nominated selectors from each of the five states of the South-East). While 10 persons came out of the first ballot, 5 persons were shortlisted from the more representative second ballot.
But at the third stage of our selection process, the five shortlisted failed to satisfy our key criteria for final selection, prompting our decision to include the original 17 nominated individuals and even possible others outside the original 17 in the physical, one-on-one assessment discussions with the potential aspirants.
Ladies and gentlemen, after a long and arduous search, we have come to the conclusion that, eventhough all the individuals we assessed are eminently qualified to contest for President of Nigeria, only one person will be presented by our Project to represent the South-East in the 2023 presidential race on APC platform.
And that person is none other than Senator Ken Nnamani, GCON. It is the former Senate President and Chairman of the National Assembly that we have finally decided that the cap most fits.
What remains now is to persuade the Distinguished Senator to pick up the gauntlet and lead us to what will definitely be a long and tortuous campaign journey – through the Third Phase of our Project – to Aso Rock Presidential Villa and, thereafter, provide the best leadership of Nigeria since Independence in 1960.
That is the ultimate desire of and motive behind our Project.
Dr. Chinedu Jideofo-Ogbuagu is the
National Coordinator,
South-East APC Presidency Project 2023 (A project of South-East APC Integrity Group).
08023163451, 09052910866.
