Atiku’s endorsement by Ohaneze monumental tragedy- Igboezue

Moses Oyediran, Enugu

Igboezue Cultural Advancement Initiative, a pan-Igbo political and socio-cultural group, has said Ohaneze Ndigbo’s preference of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to her own 18 Igbo sons vying for the 2019 Presidential Election makes the endorsement a political misadventure and monumental tragedy. The National Leader of Igboezue, Chief Chekwas Okorie, said this in Enugu on Thursday in a World Press Conference on the stand of the vast majority of Ndigbo. This is as he said that it was politically expedient for the Igbo electorate all over Nigeria to vote massively for President Buhari on Feb. 16. “The fact that there are 33 Igbo sons and daughters contesting for Presidential and Vice Presidential posts in the 2019 Presidential Election makes the purported Imeobi political misadventure a monumental tragedy. “We urge the Igbo electorate who amount to about 30 million voters across the country to join hands with other Nigerians to have a major stake in the imminent victory of President Muhammadu Buhari in the forthcoming Presidential Election. “We must not be the odd group out of the imminent victory celebration. “As a critical stakeholder, we must earn our claim to be supported to produce the President of Nigeria in 2023. Ndigbo are not cut out for the opposition. “The very political leaders in People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who are misleading our people into putting all their eggs in the PDP basket will be the first to jump ship and abandon them and relocate to the ruling party. We are used to their kind and we know them,’’ he said. Okorie, however, criticized the leadership of Ohaneze for going into political partisanship by adopting the Presidential candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar under the cover of its decision making body, `Imeobi Ndigbo’ on Jan. 24. He noted that the unfortunate adoption and endorsement of Atiku was embarrassing and ridiculing to the republican Igbo nation as politically naïve and pedestrian in their collective political strategy. According to him, what manner of desperation would persuade those who gathered at Enugu to desecrate the memory of the great Zik of Africa; by choosing to sideline the historic and epoch making event of the commissioning of the Zik Mausoleum in favour of the adoption of Atiku. He noted that Ohaneze leadership allegedly erred since it was an undeniable fact that the PDP manifesto had no provision for the restructuring of Nigeria. “There is also no evidence of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which Ohaneze reached with Alhaji Atiku,’’ he said.