2023: Ohanaeze Ndigbo has no pact with Gowon

Apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo said on Wednesday that it had no pact with the former head of state, General Yakubu Gowon (rtd) on the campaign for the emergence of a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction in 2023.

Ohanaeze also said it was not planning any interface with some prominent political figures in the country towards achieving a president of Igbo extraction, insisting that such reports were being peddled to deceive the public and curry attention.

One Okechukwu Isiguzoro had signed a press statement at the weekend under the banner of Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC) claiming Gowon was spearheading the campaign for the emergence of Igbo candidate for the presidency and that Ndigbo was planning an interface with some prominent Nigerians on the project.

But in a statement issued in Enugu and signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Ohanaeze Ndigbo worldwide, Prince Uche Achi-Okpaga, he stated that there was no truth in the said publications as the organization never met anywhere to agree on such.

The statement said: “Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide hereby informs the general public that at no time was the aforementioned situations ever contemplated or was there any meeting at which they were tabled for consideration, let alone any action being taken or a press statement issued on that.

“The purported actions exist only in the imagination of the miscreants and enemies of the Igbo nation who are the purveyors of the unfortunate concoctions. Ohanaeze Ndigbo reiterates that there is no organisation as Ohanaeze Youth Council recognized by Ndigbo and that the misguided so-called leader of the group, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, is a warped, egocentric and power-hungry mind who obviously is living in an incontrovertible state of mental delusion.

“If nothing else raises doubts about his bifurcated mind, how come not long ago he was the “president” of the group but suddenly metamorphosis to its “president general”. Ohanaeze Ndigbo regrets the unpatriotic acts of some Igbo politicians sponsoring these equally unpatriotic irredentists shamelessly flying the kite for them towards 2023”

The statement added that “If it is the wish of God that a president of Igbo stock shall emerge in 2023, it will not be a midwife by an inconsequential group whose only mission and preoccupation is personal aggrandizement and not the collective interest and aspiration of Ndigbo”

Ohanaeze Ndigbo urged prominent Igbo sons and daughters to stand up and call the boys to order, insisting that “it could have gone to court to stop their irreverent behaviour but for the same reason it refused to face other Igbo recalcitrant groups headlong in its mild skirmishes with them … a father does not quarrel with his children in the public”

Ohanaeze Ndigbo, therefore, distances itself from the “infantile hallucinations of the group as it does not exist”, while urging the media and members of the public to desist from using the official logo of Ohanaeze Ndigbo of a red cap and a feather when writing about or referring to the errant group.

It said such was a great disservice to Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide.