The Deputy Minority Whip and member representing Njikaoka / Anaocha and Dunukfia in the House of Representatives, Honourable George Ozodinobi has bemoaned the plight of the Igbo man in the economic and socio-political scheme of things in the country. In an interview with our correspondent in Abuja, Ozodinobi lamented that ‘’over five decades after the civil war, the Igbo man is being marginalized politically, economically and infrastructurally in the country in a way that appears officially recognized’’.
‘’Just consider, that with all the public outcry over these several years about the plight of the Igbo in Nigeria, the Igbo man was still shortchanged in the distribution of ministerial slots in the cabinet of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. When will this stop? And who is benefiting from this injustice? The North-west zone has seven ministerial slots while the North-east, North-central, South-west and South-south zones have six slots each. Then only the South-east zone has five ministerial slots. This is tokenism, because it is clear that what has restrained the hand of the president is the constitution, otherwise the South-east would have had one or two or no slot at all’
He contended that ‘’the marginalization is now clearly institutionalisd, otherwise how do you explain that throughout the eight-year tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari, no Igbo man was a member of the National Defence Council and the National Security Council. This is heart-wrenching and clearly stretches the emotion of the Igbo man to the limit.’’ Ozodinobi tasked all well-meaning Nigerians to interrogate the plight of the Igbos ‘’because whatever goes round can always come around sometimes. A situation where a people are shut out of some common rights is condemnable. Consider that the South-east zone is the only zone with five states while others have six states each leading to a situation where the South-east is the zone with the least revenue allocation in the country’’
He further contended that ‘’the marginalization of the Igbos stretches beyond political interests, it dovetails into infrastructural deprivations because there is a deliberate policy of the Federal Government to underuse the seaports in the Igbo axis and to make the international status granted the Nnamdi Azikiwe Aiport in Enugu look like a fluke. The list has no end, I never imagined that this issue of marginalization will stretch this far’’. On how to remedy the situation, he posited that some of the issues will require constitutional amendments and will need political will to sincerely address.
