June 21, (THEWILL) – Apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, has disowned a purported youth wing of the group, “Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide”, and declared its acclaimed president general, one Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, wanted.
A statement issued on Wednesday, by the group’s national publicity secretary, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, said the youth council ‘is not known to the organs and structures of Ohanaeze Ndigbo’.
According to Ogbonnia, “The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide is a strange, non-existent mischievous contrivance for narrow personal interests.
“It is a thing of grave concern to every Igbo adult that of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria, only amongst the Igbo that a few unrepentant wary transgressors have been recruited to tarnish and belittle the only apex umbrella body for which the Igbo are known.”
He said Nnabuike had rebuffed all efforts made to him ‘to desist from lowering the hallowed image of Ohanaeze Ndigbo’.
“This group has been reminded to no avail that Ohanaeze represents the Igbo history, emotions, collective consciousness and solidarity that should not be dragged to the mud; and that they should not always place the Igbo on line with their unguarded youthful impetuosity”, the statement added.
Ogbonnia described members of the Youth Council as ‘charlatans and media navigators who leech on the invaluable footprints of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to issue press releases for perverse and illicit pecuniary interests’.
He urged the public not to have any dealings with the group.
“The leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has also taken a legal action of which Okwu Nnabuike is joined in the Enugu State High Court suit, marked E/878/2022. His Lordship Justice Uchenna Mogbo has issued an injunction restraining them from parading themselves as representatives of Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
“Since the above court order on March 12, 2023, which is still subsisting, these cohorts have continued to impersonate Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide in most despicable forms. Curiously, Mazi Okwu Nnabuike has refused to honour the several invitations from security operatives to come and answer to criminal complaints of impersonation and perjury”, Ogbonnia said.
The president-general of Ohanaeze, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, was quoted in the statement to have called on the general public to ‘discountenance any publication, press release or remarks emanating from Mazi Okwu Nnabuike or any of his agents as such publication, press releases or remarks do not in a way represent the position of Ohanaeze Ndigbo’.
The statement described Nnabuike as ‘a usurper and impostor; an interloper who has no authority or mandate to act or speak on behalf of Ohanaeze Ndigbo for any reason whatsoever.”
Ogbonnia urged the media to “seek clearance from Ohanaeze leadership before going public”, and requested “any member of the public who may have useful information on the whereabouts of Mr Okwu Nnabuike to report to the nearest police station or to Ohanaeze Ndigbo Secretariat at No. 7, Park Avenue, GRA, Enugu.”
