By Our Correspondent
An Onitsha – based human rights lawyer, Dr Jezie Ekejiuba has formed what he called the “Igbo Kwenu Consultative Forum” to fight the alleged marginalization of the South East geopolitical zone.
Ekejiuba said Igbo Kwenu is a child of circumstance, adding that it would use legitimate means to fight the deliberate lopsidedness in appointments in the country.
He recalled how he had used another organization, the Voters Rights Association of Nigeria, as the vanguard for the protection of the rights of voters in Nigeria through the instrument of court litigations over the years and won cases that touch on safeguarding the rights of voters.
Ekejiuba, in a statement said: “The continued marginalisation of the Igbo people of South East Nigeria has been a thorn in the fresh of this rights lawyer and lover of his people.
“From the denial of additional one State to the South East region for sake of equity in the polity, to the denial of Igbo rotational presidency, to the denial of Igbo people from the commanding heights of political appointments in Nigeria namely political,security, military posts by the Buhari and Tinubu administrations, to the disdain by President Buhari and President Tinubu for the call by the respected Igbo leaders to release Nnamdi Kanu for the sake of security in the South East, to the continued militarisation of South East region with uncountable police and military checkpoints.
“Igbo Kwenu is therefore a political forum or platform to agitate, advocate and fight for the constitutionally guaranteed political rights of the Igbo people of South East Nigeria, including the right to elect the President of Nigeria of Igbo extraction under the rotation principle indirectly provided for under Section 42 (1), (b),14(3 and 318 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).
“A combined reading and interpretation of the above provisions will clearly show that the Nigerian Constitution indirectly provided for the entrenched rotational presidency of Nigeria.
“Igbo Kwenu will use peaceful and legal channels through the Media campaigns and advocacy and legal actions in the courts of law to achieve its mission, vision and objectives to unchain and liberate the Igbo people from their current sorry state of systematic political marginalisation in Nigeria.
“Igbo Kwenu is out to serve as the true voice of the Igbo man in a New Nigeria where every citizen should be treated as equal, irrespective of sex, race or origin”.
