TDThe call for a president of Southeast extraction has often been reduced to a simplistic label, “Igbo presidency.” Such phrasing, though popular, distorts both the historical and constitutional essence of the matter.
Nigeria’s presidency is not an ethnic title; it is a national office.
The agitation, therefore, is not for an Igbo president, but for a Nigerian president of Southeast extraction, a subtle but crucial distinction that recognizes Ndigbo as citizens across the federation, not a tribe seeking dominion.
My brother Aloy Ejimakor’s recent reflections on the futility of “Igbo presidency” betray a misunderstanding of the political balance Nigeria has sought, however imperfectly, since 1999.
It is true that mere access to the presidency does not automatically dissolve structural injustice. But to imply that the Southeast should resign itself to perpetual exclusion, for fear of backlash or historical prejudice, is to mistake caution for progress.
Arm-twist of 2023
In 2023, the Southwest and its allies produced President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. That achievement, while borne of political calculation, effectively occupied the slot that would have gone to the Southeast under Nigeria’s unwritten zoning convention.
The North had just completed eight years under President Muhammadu Buhari; justice and political equilibrium required power to return southward.
By every rotational logic, the Southeast was next in line. Yet, as has often been the case, the region was bypassed for the politically entrenched Yoruba bloc.
Thus, the Yoruba did not merely win an election, they took the turn that, by Nigeria’s own rotation pattern, belonged to the Southeast.
To insist that the Southeast wait another eight years before even seeking a candidate is to normalize exclusion as a political strategy.
The Historical Continuum of Igbo Marginalization
Since 1999, the presidency has traveled the length of Nigeria’s dominant blocs:
- 1999–2007: Olusegun Obasanjo (Southwest)
- 2007–2010: Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (Northwest)
- 2010–2015: Goodluck Jonathan (South-South)
- 2015–2023: Muhammadu Buhari (Northwest)
- 2023–present: Bola Ahmed Tinubu (Southwest)
The Southeast and Northeast remain the only geopolitical zones yet to produce a president in the Fourth Republic. This reality is not mere symbolism, it is empirical evidence of structural imbalance.
In federal systems worldwide, such uneven representation breeds alienation, political apathy, and, eventually, instability. Nigeria’s case is no different.
Ejimakor’s argument that such a presidency would invite resistance is not novel.
Every Nigerian leader has faced ethnic skepticism at inception, Obasanjo with northern mistrust, Jonathan with northern resentment, Buhari with southern suspicion.
Yet governance, not origin, defined their legacies.
Should the Southeast therefore remain perpetually excluded because others might “feel uncomfortable”? That logic perpetuates rather than resolves division.
Politics Is a Game of Inclusion
Moreover, data on national cohesion and democratic participation shows a consistent correlation between perceived inclusion and stability.
Between 2011 and 2019, voter turnout in the Southeast declined sharply, from 64% to roughly 29%, a reflection of waning faith in the system.
Inclusion is not charity; it is strategic necessity. No region can sustainably build a federation while keeping one of its pillars politically quarantined.
The fear that an Igbo president would provoke backlash is historically misplaced.
Ndigbo, since the civil war, have shown unparalleled reintegration efforts—investing, trading, and living across every Nigerian state. No other ethnic group has domesticated itself so broadly in the national space.
To question their capacity to govern Nigeria fairly is to deny both evidence and history.
“Igbo Presidency” Not Ethnic Claim, but National Correction
The Southeast’s claim to the presidency is part of Nigeria’s continuous search for equilibrium.
The country is not asking for an Igbo to rule for Igbos; rather, it seeks a Nigerian leader, from the Southeast, who embodies the same breadth of national ownership every other region has already tasted.
To deny that turn under the guise of caution is to affirm injustice as destiny.
The truth is: political fairness, once postponed, never arrives by accident. It must be insisted upon, argued for, and negotiated into existence, exactly as zones before now have done.
Until the Southeast occupies that seat, the federation remains lopsided, not by geography alone, but by conscience.
Maazi Tochukwu Ezeoke writes from Awka, Anambra State.
