S’East, S’South, Middle Belt Form Alliance

Detailed report

Information Nigeria

19 February 2012

S’East, S’South, Middle Belt Form Alliance

MEMBERS of a coalition, comprising ethnic nationalities and groups from the North Central, South East and South South geo-political zones of the country, yesterday converged on Enugu to hold an all-night vigil and chat the way on how to retain political power even beyond 2015.

Also leader of Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF), Asari Dokubo, led the gathering into sending a red signal to the core north, which has ruled the country for the greater part of its existence, saying the core north will no longer smell power in the capacity of a president in the nearest future.

At the occasion, which featured about 3000 youths drawn from Tiv Ndoma Igalla Ibra Ibaji Ibibio Efik Ikwerre Ishekiri, Isoko and various Igbo groups, they insisted the only justice that could be acceptable to every part of the Nigeria was for presidential political power to move round all ethnic groups of the country.

In what they described as “hand shake across the Niger” they insisted that the country was bigger than any individual and could only move forward when various groups are given sense of belonging even as they describe the incessant killings in Jos as attempt to destabilise the administration of Goodluck Jonathan.

Led by the president of Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Miabiye Kuromiema, the coalition called Coalition of National and Organisations of Nigeria pooled over 3,000 of its members to attend the summit in Enugu and to pay a condolence visit to the family of late Igbo leader, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.

At Ojukwu’s house in Enugu, where the presence of the members of the coalition actually charged the immediate environment, leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force, Asari Dokubo, literally spit fire as he declared that the movement of the coalition is to ensure that the core northern part of the country, which believe it is born to rule the country, would not rule again in the near future.

Regretting the failure of Biafran revolution led by the late Ojukwu, Dokubo declared that, by 2015, if President Goodluck Jonathan is not interested in contesting, the coalition and other stakeholders working with it would work for the emergence of a president from the South East or North Central zones.