Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, a South East group within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) under the aegis of the South-East APC Presidency Project 2023 has declared that a lot has changed in the zone since the 1970s, insisting South-East yesterday is not same with the region today.

According to a statement signed by its Convener/National Coordinator, Chinedu Jideofo-Ogbuagu, the group said that before 2020, “it was the custom in post-1970 South-East geopolitical zone to look up to others to tell us what we can have and what is beyond our reach.

“Then, to show how wise and intelligent they were, most South-Easterners would tell anyone who cared to listen that a South-Easterner could not become this or that because “they” would not agree.

“To the defeatist, low self-esteem South-Easterner, power could only be given to the South-Easterners by “them”. Don’t we all know who “they/them” were!

“Then enter 2020 and South-East APC Presidency Project 2023, a project of South-East APC Integrity Group of post-2015 general elections, and the narrative has dramatically changed since January 2020.

“Even those South-Easterners who were seen few weeks ago (in their old ways) running from one traditional ruler to another with cow and SUV gifts for endorsement as presidential running mate or national chairmanship candidacy of political party or some other selfish political favours intended to be in lieu of Nigeria’s presidency of South-East extraction, have now realised that power this time must not be given to us but that we must take the Nigerian presidential power that is rightly ours.

“Now too, seeing that South-Easterners have woken up at last and can become trusted not to sell out – thanks to South-East APC Presidency Project 2023, powerful voices and mass support from South-South, South-West, North-Central, North-West and North-East are heard increasingly in support of a South-Easterner succeeding President Buhari in 2023.

“The way things are now, press statements by few selfish and greedy individuals will not change what the Gods – through the good peoples of Nigeria – have decided for Nigeria, after years of national leadership frustrations and self-inflicted national injuries and arrested development.

“As we say in South-East APC Presidency Project 2023, the promise of Nigeria’s president of South-East extraction and on APC platform in 2023 is a promise of Nigeria’s national rebirth. Anyone who stands in its path will invite the wrath of the Gods upon himself or herself.

“Dodgy South-East businessmen and political opportunists will not this time trade with our quest for Nigeria’s president of South-East extraction, which we and others have made popular and will achieve with the Gods’ blessings.

“Sorry will be the name of any of them who tries their usual dishonourable business of selfishly and wickedly selling the people’s hopes and aspirations”, the statement read.