Support Igbo Presidency, Ohanaeze tells Jonathan

Obasanjo backs Igbo Presidency
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, yesterday, urged the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, to support Igbo man for president, reminding him of the support the South East gave him to become president.

In a statement in Abakaliki, the Secretary General of Ohanaeze, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, warned that nobody should pitch Ijaws against Ndigbo, again, advising Jonathan to favour Igbo Presidency.

He maintained that the Igbo socio-cultural organisation will not react to speculations about Jonathan’s ambitions until he officially declares to run for 2023 Presidency, adding that there are backstage activities to pit Ijaw against Ndigbo.

The statement reads: “Ohanaeze has reinstated that there is no going back on 2023 Igbo Presidency, and anything contrary to it amounts to a denial of equity, fairness, and Justice.

“We will not react to speculations about Jonathan’s ambitions until he officially declares to run, as there are backstage activities to pitch Ijaw against Ndigbo.

“We expected Goodluck Jonathan, as elder statesman and African icon, to endorse an Igbo Presidency from the seven Igbo speaking states, including Anioma (in Delta) or Ikwerre (in Rivers) states, which he has conceded in the past that South East and Igbo were his citadels of support in 2011 and 2015.

IN a related development, former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has restated his position that the South East should be allowed to produce a Nigerian President in 2023, stressing that it would ensure peace, justice, fairness and sustainable national development in the country.

Obasanjo stated this on Monday evening when he received the leadership of apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, at his presidential library in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He said: “The minimum Nigerians would accept is that the next president should come from the South.”

Recall that Ime Obi Ohanaeze, at its meeting last week in Enugu, mandated the President General and the Secretary to constitute a political committee to move round the country to solicit support for a igerian President from the South East extraction.