There is crisis in the Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, following its recent endorsement of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Atiku was endorsed by the group on Thursday at a meeting held in Enugu, creating crisis among notable Igbo leaders, especially those in the All Progressives Congress.
Ohanaeze had endorsed the PDP candidate on the same day President Muhammadu Buhari visited Anambra and Enugu states, where he inaugurated some projects.
But some Igbo leaders, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama; Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu; and Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, kicked against the endorsement at a media briefing on Thursday night.
They claimed that the power to carry out such an endorsement was vested upon the Ohanaeze General Assembly and not the Imeobi.
They described the meeting as a mischief, as it was held at the same time President Buhari was still attending functions in Igboland.
In his speech, Ngige said the President-General of Ohanaeze, John Nwodo, had earlier agreed to move the meeting to 7pm, wondering why it was later held by 4pm and a decision hurriedly taken.
He said, “The Chairman of the South-East Governors’ Forum and I had approached the Ohanaeze president and pleaded with him to change the date.
“He said he could not do that; he later gave me 4pm (as the time), but I told him it was not going to work. By 5pm, they met and issued an already prepared communiqué. All of them that met are Ohanaeze PDP.
“So, it is now Ohanaeze PDP vs Ohanaeze APC. They have factionalised Ohanaeze.
“I want to state clearly that the endorsements have never favoured us; they endorsed Olu Falae, he failed; they endorsed third term bid, it failed; they endorsed Goodluck Jonathan, he lost. We are not going to continue on this trajectory. We are going to dig up our arsenal and all we need to fight this.”
Contributing, Onyeama and Onu frowned on the move, describing it as unacceptable to Igbo leaders like them.
In his remarks, former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, said the Ohanaeze never took into consideration that sons and daughters of Igboland belonged to different political parties.
He said, “One of the things that Ohanaeze came up with is that our son, Peter Obi, was picked as running mate to the PDP presidential candidate.
“It does not make reasonable sense because there are people of Igbo extraction working to be number one, but those guys endorsed number two.
“Concerning restructuring, which talked about, the APC as a party, which I belong to, set up a committee and it endorsed restructuring.
“But let me state clearly that no one can restructure (the country), be it the President, Senate President or the Chief Justice of Nigeria.
“Ohanaeze should not dabble into politics at all. If they want to register Ohanaeze as a political party, let them do so, after which those that who are not interested will leave.”
