The Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, says
it has been difficult for an Igbo to become president of Nigeria because the
people have a knack to drag down their rising leaders.
According to a report by The Punch newspaper,
the governor stated this in an interview with journalists on Sunday at the
Government House, Owerri.
Mr Okorocha, who in 2003 first aspired to be
president under the flag of the defunct All Peoples Party, lamented that he
never got much support from the South East for his ambition.
“The Igbo do not know how to honour their own.
They rather like to run down any of their rising leaders. The pull-him-down
syndrome is high in Igboland. And it is very unfortunate,” the governor who is
of the All Progressives Congress said.
”Anytime I come out to run for the Presidency
of this country, I will not suffer pull-him-down from the North or from the
South-West or South South, it is only in Igboland that I will suffer it.”
According to him, the Igbo do not value their
own.
“And they engage in this pull-him-down practice
without knowing the overall implications on the Igbo. So, it will be out of
place for an Igbo presidential aspirant at any given period to think that the
Igbo will make him President because the Igbo do not value their own. They
don’t value what they have, but value outsiders. It is in their character. It
is in their nature.
Mr Okorocha furthered explained that the Igbo
would prefer to use the social media platform to criticise their leaders
without taking into consideration efforts that had been made to see things work
out.
“Read the newspapers and go to the social
media, all the insults and attacks you get are all from the Igbo. They go to
any length to run you down without caring about your good intentions and all
the efforts being made to see that things work out fine for the people of the
area.
”It is a problem. It didn’t start today. Go
down the memory lane, you discover that the pull-him-down syndrome in Igboland
didn’t start today.”
After his unsuccessful bid in 2003, Mr Okorocha
formed the Action Alliance (AA) party in 2005 under which he again ran for
president in the 2007 elections.
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