Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the most respected Igbo socio-cultural organisation has disclosed that the people of the Igbo Speaking South-East region spoke their minds by casting their votes for their choice of candidate during the 2019 presidential poll.

This was stated in reaction to comments credited to Chief George Moghalu disclosing that the group shouldn’t have endorse  Atiku Abubakar,the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate.

In a statement issued in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital by its National Publicity Secretary, Pince Uche Achi-Okpaga, over the weekend, the organisation insisted that people of the South East would still repeat the same voting pattern if given another opportunity.

The organisation accused Moghalu of whipping up sentiments.

 

The statement reads: “Those who are now working against the majority interest of the people just because they are picking some crumbs falling from the presidential table, will be victims of posterity, l bet you.

“Ohanaeze will not be tempted to join issues with people like Chief George Moghalu who dwell in whipping up sentiments and want to use Ohanaeze’s name to attract cheap political relevance and attention.

“Perhaps, Chief Moghalu has become the spokesperson of the APC and ended up contradicting himself by saying that power is taken and not given.

“You see, when power is taken from the people, it becomes illegitimate but when it is given by the people through the process of free and fair exercise of their mandate in an election, it becomes legitimate.

“In true democracies, power is usually in the hands of the electorate and not the elected or the rulers and you do not take power from them. Instead, they give it through the exercise of their mandate. Recall the words of former President Goodluck Jonathan,

“My political ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian.The staccato and alarming flow of the blood of Nigerians clearly vitiates the entire process of the 2019 presidential election and has unfortunately taken Nigeria many years backward.”

It will be recalled that Chief Orji Kalu, a former governor of Abia State lambasted the group prior to the polls  for endorsing the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, former Vice President Abubakar Atiku.

 

Kalu expressed his disappointment with the group on Sunday in an interview with newsmen in his Camp Neya country home in Igbere, Bende Local Government Area of the state.

He said that the Nwodo-led executive of the organisation betrayed the people’s trust and exposed the body as being partisan.

“Ohanaeze is a socio-cultural organisation and so should not be seen to be partisan. What the leadership did by endorsing Atiku was not in the interest of the Igbo nation.

“The endorsement also did not enjoy the support of the majority of members but may be a committee’s decision,” he said.

Kalu described the endorsement as wrong and capable of decimating the organisation into two factions, if not rescinded.

I was very surprised that Nwodo, whom I have a lot of respect for, could do such a thing because that is not the right thing to do.

What they just did implies that we have two Ohanaezes, or we are going to have another organisation in a different name.

“I will be in consultation with Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State and other people of goodwill to decide what we will do next, we are not going to accept it.

“These are card-carrying members of PDP, they cannot use Ohanaeze platform to endorse any candidate, it’s not acceptable to us.

 

 

 

SOURCE: DAILYPOST,PUNCH

 

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