The immediate past Governor of Anambra state, Chief Peter Obi has called on Igbo in Diaspora to stair up support for President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to be returned in the 2015 Presidential election, as the hope to restore the dignity of the Igbo Race.
He stated this at a banquet held in Houston Texas at the annual Igbo Socio Cultural Festival tagged ''2014 World Igbo Congress'' in United States of America, stating the reasons why the president should be reelected for another four years in office , to enable him complete his Transformation Agenda programmes for the country.
He frowned at the idea where some would be calling for Igbo presidency alone, and said the called should be a collective request, where the interest of all the ethnic groups would be considered "Today, some people said we negotiated wrongly with Jonathan in 2010 just because we moved away from the past practice where people's idea of negotiation ends in nominating their children, relations or cronies for appointment. What we did was to go for those things that will benefit the totality of our people, such as request for an International Airport with full terminal building, the construction of the Second Niger Bridge, the control of some menacing erosion in the geo-political region, the reconstruction of Federal roads in the region, among others" obi said.
Chief Obi assured that future negotiation of presidency by the south eastern extract of the country would follow the same pattern and urged some people who are bent of seeking personal benefit in the collective interest of Ndi=Igbo should have a rethink.
Obi said that beyond working on those specific projects that were basis for negotiation with President Jonathan in 2010, that the President's personal approach to issues affecting our people, just like others, were encouraging. Using INNOSON Motor Manufacturing Company as an example, Obi recalled how Jonathan's intervention made him recover the money for his goods wrongly auctioned and how he personally came to commission the company's Nnewi facility and how he has continued to encourage him.
On the rumour that he was plotting to replace Sen. Anyim Pius Anyim as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Obi described the rumour as "very wicked", and said he was still at a loss to discern what those after the rumour hope to gain other than to destroy relationships and present him as somebody desperate for appointment, when the contrary is actually the case. "I have never discussed the issue of SGF with anybody and do not know how people conceived the story of my plotting to become one. It must be the mechanization of evil minds," Obi said.
