2023: Dokpesi reveals IPOB agenda with Igbo presidency, highlights Atiku’s candidacy

DAAR Communications Plc, Chief Raymond Dokpesi says the separatist activities of IPOB and its leader Nnamdi Kanu, are jeopardising the chances of the south-East region in 2023.

IPOB, through its violence and counter-government orders has become a force to reckon with in the southeast.

Dokpesi believes if a patriot from the southeast eventually becomes president, IPOB will blackmail him to declare Biafra an independent nation.

“I have publicly come out to support and call on a Southeastern presidential candidate in the recent past, but the emergence of IPOB and its influence across the South-East has complicated and undermined the agitation for patriotic Nigerians of Igbo extraction to lead this nation as far as the 2023 election is concerned,” he said.

“If nobody has told Ohanaeze Ndigbo before, the concern today from some other regions is that if Nnamdi Kanu plays the role of Aguiyi Ironsi in leading a militant revolt against constitutional government in the South-East under Igbo presidency, the president will be pressured by his base to facilitate the UN processes for the South-East to call for independence from Nigeria.

“Thus an Igbo President may be compromised in protecting the political and geographic boundaries of Nigeria whilst Nigeria remains under the threat of IPOB’s secessionist activities.”

The media businessman also back the argument that negotiation—not threat—will be used to make power rotate.

“It is unfair but neither the South-South nor the South-East nor the North-East has the votes combined to determine the presidency on their own. We have to negotiate with other regions and where prominent leaders express such concerns based on the similarities of our history and contemporary circumstances, it indicates to me that the South-East is not trusted with the Presidency in 2023.

“It indicates to me that the leaders of the South-East have not done enough before now in dealing with and addressing the challenge that IPOB poses to their aspirations in leading Nigeria.”

He equally zeroed in on the Atiku Abubakar presidency that has been on slow burn since 219.

“In Atiku Abubakar, the South-East not only has a friend and a detribalised Nigerian who understands the pains, frustrations as genuine aspirations of the people of the South-East but also is a believer in the restructuring of Nigeria, which both in the short term and in the long term, is necessary and critical to the growth and development of Nigeria in general and the minority regions in particular,” he said.

“By supporting Atiku Abubakar from the North-East to victory in 2023, the rotation of power across Nigeria will have come full cycle and I believe that the agitation for a South-East presidency will be better accepted and appreciated by the incumbency and other regions in subsequent elections after 2023.”