How Buhari Subjugated Igbos – Edwin Clark

Posted by Nwa Diokpa Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Friday, June 14th, 2024

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – The leader of the Ijaw Nation, Chief Edwin Clark, has stated that former President Muhammadu Buhari did all he could do to subjugate Igbos from the South-Eastern part of Nigeria as the former president refused to appoint any person from the southeast in his time in office.

Clark disclosed this in a letter to President Bola Tinubu, where he stated that Buhari did not appoint anyone from the South East in his constitution of the Board of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, despite the fact that the region had three oil-producing states including Abia, Anambra and Imo States.

He said: “President Buhari did everything to subjugate the Igbos for reasons best known to him. Perhaps it may be necessary to cite some examples; the NNPC board which he constituted when he came into office had 9 members, 1 from the South-West, 1 from South-South, and no member from the South-East, even though 3 South-East states; Abia, Anambra and Imo are oil producing states; the remaining members including his Chief of State came from the North, a non-oil producing region.

“However, he later tried to amend it when he appointed Sen Ifeanyi Ararome as chairman of the second board; and he later replaced him with Margery Chuba-Okadigbo before he took office. He (Senator Ifeanyi Ararome) took the matter to court and won but the situation has not changed.

“Also, when President Buhari attempted to obtain loans from foreign financial institutions that exceeded 30% of the GDP which was not in the interest of the country; and the loan of $22.7 billion (USD), of which less than 1% of the amount was to be allocated to the South-East zone while other zones were allocated higher percentage for infrastructural projects, is a violation of the constitutional requirement to ensure a balanced economic development of Nigeria in accordance with President Buhari’s Oath of Office. In President Buhari’s 17-man security chiefs, 14 of them came from the North and only 3 from the South excluding the Igbos from the South East.”

According to the elder statesman, the “discrimination and injustice” against the Igbo had not stopped under Tinubu’s administration, as the president had appointed 10 ministers from the Southwestern region, and only six had been appointed from the South.

He continued: “Mr President, even in your administration, the discrimination and injustice against the Igbos has not abated. The old Eastern Region and the old Western Region, to which I belonged, were equal competitors and partners before and during the First and Second Republic but today, you have appointed 10 Yorubas as Ministers from the South-West, and only five (5) Ministers from the South-East, and you even failed to give them the ministerial appointment due to their region that would have made it six (6) Ministers. There is no justification for this grave omission and no effort has been made to correct it.

“Now that the elections are over, we must face the restructuring of this country. I repeat the immediate restructuring of Nigeria must be carried out if this country is to remain one, and I appeal to Mr President to take immediate action to implement the historic 2014 National Conference Report which submitted 600 recommendations to the Presidency on how to restructure Nigeria in every aspect of our lives.

“The Igbos of Southeast or wherever they are in Nigeria, must stand up and assert their rights legitimately, judiciously and in a democratic way, to benefit like any other Nigerian as it was before the civil war of 1967.”