Oby Ezekwesili calls Buhari a sectional leader and urges him to take the moral high ground

FORMER education minister Dr Oby Ezekwesili has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to stop being a sectional leader and take the moral high ground by calling off the ongoing military action in southeast Nigeria.

Over the last 48 hours, tension has been high in the southeast following clashes between the Nigerian Army and secessionist group the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob). Local people are infuriated that the army has been deployed into the area under mission codenamed Operation Python Dance.

A key supporter of President Buhari during the last elections in 2015, Dr Ezekwesili, urged the president to act as a true leader by showing love to all. She made her stance clear in a series of tweets on Twitter while reacting to the recent altercations in Umuahia in Abia State.

Dr Ezekwesili said: “It is tragic that you, our president, Muhammadu Buhari, have deliberately or inadvertently alienated a segment of the people you lead. It is tragic.”

In addition, Dr Ezekwesili said it was wrong of President Buhari to punish an entire geopolitical zone because of the actions of a few. She accused the government of punishing the entire southeast due to the actions of Ipob and its leader Nnamdi Kanu.

“The leader of a country cannot be friends only of those he or she likes, that is not leadership. A leader builds up groups, not divide then and you cannot lead only those that worship and swear by you.

You are the leader, so you must carry the burden even of those that detest you. It is the lowest form of churlishness that is unbecoming of a leader to send signals that you dislike anyone of the groups you lead," Dr Ezekwesili added.

She described a leader as a winner, adding that when a winner acts like a loser, things go wrong in their kingdom. According to Dr Ezekwesili, real leaders build a bond with all their people.

“Worst is when a leader makes enemies of most because he abhors the action of one or a few, that is not leadership, it is ethnic prejudice. A real leader does not suffer from the destructive disease of ethnic prejudice as it endangers his or her people and real leaders cannot bear such,” Dr Ezekwesili added.