A civil society organisation, Igbo Awareness for Development Initiative, has called for merger of three political parties with presence in the South-East to produce a strong political structure in the region.
Political parties for the merger, according to Chairman the group, Dr Robert Dikeukwu, are All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), United Progressive Party (UPP) and Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA), whose founders are from the zone.
Dikeukwu made the call on Monday in Enugu at the World Igbo Summit with the theme, ‘Igbo Stand and Reposition Your Region’.
He said that the summit was focused on the economic development, political emancipation and resuscitation of the South-East states from bad leadership.
He stated that solution to the political problem of the zone would be when all the registered political parties in the area fussed into one.
“If out of selfishness, the parties refuse to come together as one, we, the common people, will cause a new party to emerge, starting from the grassroots.
“You see that no governor was invited to this summit because we want to take the campaign to the grassroots through the traditional rulers and town unions.
“The Igbos must unite to speak with one voice to reposition the zone in the nation’s polity,” he said.
The group’s chairman said that the zone ought to have one political agenda channelled through a formidable political party that would enable them manage their resources.
He said that the group had decided to mandate political stakeholders in the zone to use the resources they collected on behalf of everyone in the region to put infrastructure that would attract investment.
“The philosophy of the whole idea is to invite the entire Igbos to come home, invest and develop their home.
‘It is difficult to invest when the political leaders do not put in place the needed infrastructure,” he said.
Dikeukwu pointed out that it was not only the Federal Government that was marginalising the people of the region, but political leaders in the area.
One of the participants at the summit, Mrs Mary Ikokwu, urged the media to bring issues concerning the Igbos to the front burner of discourse.
She also advocated that the elders should inspire the youths to look inwards and develop the zone for a better future.
In his remarks, National Chairman of UPP, Chief Chekwas Okorie, said that the military government divided the political structure of Nigeria to favour the Northern part of the country.
Okorie, represented by the Acting National Chairman of the party, Mr Fred Obiekwe, said that the military in Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s regional structure of Nigeria with 12 states, gave six states to the North and the whole Southern Nigeria, six states.
“If this country is not restructured, it will be impossible for a southerner to win the presidential election as the North will always have more delegates.
“This will only change in special circumstances like those that produced former presidents, Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan,’’ he said.
