June 18, (THEWILL) – The Igbo Socio Cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has revealed that the fight for a president of Southeast extraction failed, because Igbo leaders failed the people by working against the interest of the Southeast.
The group highlighted that they failed to make an Igbo man the presidential candidate of the two major parties – All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), because the Southeast governors were working against the project.
Ohanaeze blamed politicians and governors of the South East over its failure.
The Vice President of Ohanaeze, Ichie Damian Okeke-Ogene, stated this while addressing newsmen.
“In spite of sustained efforts and advocacy to ensure that most political parties, especially the major political parties field candidates of Igbo extraction as their presidential candidates, things eventually did not work out that way, which I must say is very unfortunate for the country.
“On the recently concluded APC and PDP conventions, it is regrettable that the political class in the South East zone frustrated efforts of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in championing the course for presidency of Igbo extraction.
“It is sad to note that all the delegates to the conventions were more or less controlled by the leadership of their various political parties, which was reflected in their voting pattern and was a slap on the expectations of South East geopolitical zone with exception of the Ebonyi State delegates, who distinguished themselves as committed Igbo patriots and should be commended for their resilience.
“I must, at this juncture, state that the South East Governors’ Forum and Ohanaeze Ndigbo cannot be totally exonerated from the outcome of those conventions.
“Their actions made it clear that there is a leadership vacuum in the South East region, because the failure of South East Governors to have a united front at this critical time is quite regrettable.”
Okeke-Ogene said leaders of political parties in the geopolitical zone refused to unite and support one candidate each in PDP and APC before proceeding to the convention.
“They were so individualistic in their approach towards this fundamental and decisive issue to the extent that information we received alleged that some South East Governors coordinated delegates for candidates from other geo-political zones. For me, they failed Ndigbo.
“Similarly, Ohanaeze Ndigbo leadership equally has some part of the blame because when it was obvious that the Governors were failing, Ohanaeze Ndigbo never met to discuss and invite the aspirants as we used to do before, to address them on the need to prune down the numbers of aspirants.
“For this, I apologise to Ndigbo for our failure to do the needful. When I foresaw this coming, I made attempts to reach the Chairman of the South East Governors’ Forum, Chief David Umahi, who did not respond to my calls and at this point I became handicapped.”
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