The race to replace Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu as the President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo has escalated into a high-stakes battle. With threats to his life and heated debates about Rivers State’s suitability for producing the next leader, the January 2025 election promises to be a pivotal moment for the group, LAWRENCE NJOKU reports.
 
Apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, is not new to crises. In fact, in its several years of existence, it has been moving from one internal wrangling to another.
 
The current leadership of Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, certainly is not immune from this ugly development. Last week, the business mogul raised the alarm over what he described as an “ongoing dangerous dimension” orchestrated to decimate the organisation and ridicule Igboland.
 
Iwuanyanwu, who addressed a press conference at the national secretariat of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Enugu, stated that he had been receiving menacing calls and messages from unknown individuals threatening his life and property over his leadership of Igboland.
 
He stated that the threats went to the extent of one of the callers admitting to having been recruited to burn his house, explaining that the recent dissemination of false information in recorded voice messages aimed at discrediting him and the organisation is suspect in the latest threat to his life.
 
He mentioned the voice recording being circulated in social media accusing him of empowering a committee to move around the country to apologise to the Fulani leaders over the 1966 coup.
 
“I am addressing Igbo people all over the world, that if this kind of thing is not nipped in the bud, it is going to be disastrous,” he said. He recalled how past leaders of the organisation, Joe Irukwu and Ralph Uwaechue, were maligned. The assailants went after Nnia Nwodo and bombed his house in Ukeke when they did not meet him in the village.
 
The Igbo leader said, “These people have carried this too far. Some time ago, I got some information that some people were coming to burn my house. Those people said they were hired to come and burn my house. Some people also said they were hired to come and kill me. All sorts of stories like that. I started asking myself, what is it that I have done that would warrant that my house should be burnt, that I should be killed? I told those people that they shouldn’t worry.”
 
The development is currently unsettling Igboland and questions are being raised about the veracity of the claim by the president general and the genuineness of those who undertook the voice recording and their motives.
 
Several Igbo-dominated platforms have dedicated precious time to discussing the development. While some have concluded that the allegation of offering an apology over the 1966 coup was true, others have dismissed it as part of the contentions in Igboland.
 
Iwuanyanwu, who raised the concern, had further disclosed that two of his predecessors Irukwu and Uwaechue lived with unfounded allegations against them until their death.
 
Recall that some unknown gunmen had invaded Obiozor’s Awo-Omamma, Oru East council residence, Imo State in 2022 and set the building on fire. Nothing was spared from the attack. He died a few months after.

Iwuanyanwu regretted that Obiozor could not survive after his house was burnt, stressing that he (Obiozo) “died because all that he valued in life were burnt in that unfortunate attack on his residence.”

With his death in December 2022, Iwuanyanwu was in April 2023, nominated to replace him to serve out the tenure of Imo State in line with the constitution of Ohanaeze Ndigbo. The constitution has provided for the rotation of offices among Igbo states.
 
Since coming to power, however, it has not been too rosy for Iwuanyanwu, as he has to face and contend with the issues that confronted the leadership of Obiozor, who contended with some naysayers, who claimed that his ascension did not follow due process.

He battled pressures from Biafra agitators to support their aspiration to quit Nigeria and declare a state of Biafra, among other contending issues such as disunity in Igboland, alleged marginalisation of Ndigbo in the scheme of things and underdevelopment of the area. Like a diplomat, he absorbed the pressures with maturity, until his residence was burnt.

 
Iwuanyanwu is carrying a similar burden at the moment. It was apparently in the scheme of the naysayers in Ohanaeze to further the act that they recorded and circulated the voice conversation of apology to the Fulanis alleging that it was a decision taken at the retreat of Igbos that was held in Enugu last month.
 
Iwuanyanwu, who did not mince words in denying ever holding such a discussion, added that perpetrators of the voice note, went further to accuse him of receiving billions of naira to undertake and prosecute the deal.
 
“I have made it clear that the coup of 1966 was purely a military affair and had nothing to be attributed to Ndigbo. Even though Chukwuma Nzeogwu was at the head of the coup, Aguiyi Ironsi, another Igbo man, halted that coup. Thousands of Igbos in the North were killed because of the misinterpretation of facts. Why should it be Ndigbo who should beg the rest of Nigerians? Instead, they are the ones to beg us over the massacre of our people, ordinary civilians for no just cause”, he added.
 
The National Executive Council (NEC) of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, which met in Enugu, last Thursday, had recommended four Igbo people to the Imeobi Ohanaeze for sanctions in line with their constitution on the matter.
 
However, there are pointers that the crisis is part of politics ahead of its election for the new executive in January 2025. Rivers State is expected to produce the next President in line with the constitution of the group.
 
But some people are alleged of sowing the seed of discontent in not allowing power to leave the present occupant. Those claiming to be a faction of the organisation had some months ago, accused Iwuanyanwu of attempting to elongate himself in power and in the process deny Rivers State its opportunity.
 
It is being speculated that those issuing the threats and circulating the recorded audio interaction may be doing so to de-market Iwuanyanwu and dissuade him from showing further interest in the leadership of the group. Although Iwuanyanwu had variously denied nursing extension ambition, those fuelling the matter insist that the plot was strong, had been advanced and deepened.
 
Recently, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, the self-styled secretary of the group that claims to be Ohanaeze, had warned of dire consequences of attempting to deny Rivers State the next president general, alleging that the plot was real. He stated that his group decided to move the reportedly not celebrated Igbo day of last year to Port Harcourt to buttress their Igboness and show a sense of belonging.
 
Also, another Igbo chieftain, Ogonna Ikenna, had recently queried the move to hand over power to Rivers State when he asked whether its people “see themselves as Igbo.”
 
Ikenna, whose position elicited from the reported denial of former River State governor and Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike as being Igbo, had said: “I remember Nyesom Wike, whose brother was (or still) one of the presidents of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, denouncing his ancestry.

Looking their way may mean begging them for what they do not appreciate. The likes of those who denied their identity and in fact worked against Igbo should not be allowed an inch close to Igboland.”
 
However, President General of Njiko Igbo Forum, Reverend Okechukwu Obioha, had stated that the constitution of Ohanaeze stipulates one term of four years among seven Igbo-speaking states, adding that it expressly states that the president will be observed and taking turns in alphabetical order.
 
Obioha stated that Njiko Igbo Forum would not be in support of any move or action to distort a procedure and defy its constitution, stressing that the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo should begin to “prepare like it was done four years ago, to transit power peacefully and give Ndigbo a president from Rivers State.”

 
Many, however, believe that nothing had happened to suggest any such plot, stressing that Rivers State among other Igbo-speaking states that make up Ohanaeze Ndigbo have continued to have their turns in the leadership of the organisation.
 
“Late Chief Ralph Uwaechue was president of Delta and served out his tenure. Col. Joe Achuzia came from Delta and served out his tenure as secretary general. Rivers State recently produced the secretary general of Ohanaeze and has produced vice presidents and deputy presidents from other states outside Igboland. It is therefore sad that certain persons will sit in their homes to conjure things that never existed and begin to circulate them to create confusion in Igboland”, another chieftain, Levi Okeke told The Guardian.
 
Okeke, who decried the level of bickering in Igboland, stated that those who parade themselves as leaders from “non-existent factions in Ohanaeze are doing so for want of what to eat. It is hunger and want that is driving the discordant tunes; otherwise, they should know that Iwuanyanwu leadership is not crazy for power. He was begged to serve out the tenure of Imo State and we are proud of his efforts so far.”
 
Similarly, the National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, explained that there was no contention over which state would produce the next president general.

“The next leader should come from Rivers State. The constitution was articulated when the Ikwerre among us were not ambivalent of their ethnic identity”, he stated.