November 17, (THEWILL) – Apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has denied reports that it dragged Anambra State governor, Prof. Charles Soludo, to two Igbo deities for attacking the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi.
Soludo had on Monday, in an article titled: “History Beckons and I Will Not Be Silent (Part 1)”, argued that Obi would be defeated in next year’s election.
He advised Ndigbo to bargain with the presidential candidates of the two leading political parties, the APC and PDP because Peter Obi of the Labour Party will lose.
While his article had attracted wide condemnation, reports also said Ohanaeze had dragged Soludo to two separate deities in Igbo Land.
Reacting to Soludo’s article in a rebuttal on the deities, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, said the group has never contemplated consulting deities in seeking solutions for the Igbo dilemma, adding that the Igbo are profoundly endowed in various ways least of which is a resort to deities.
It said the meeting of the National Executive Committee of the group, held on November 15, 2022, elaborately discussed the issue of the place of the Igbo in 2023.
Restating deliberations of the meeting, the statement explained that President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof. George Obiozor, had stated: “Having traversed the length and breadth of the country on an advocacy mission for the emergence of a President of Nigeria from the South East zone in the 2023 general elections, we expected a positive outcome, but the two major political parties, APC and PDP, rejected with impunity and impudence the practice and convention of the last twenty years of rotation and zoning of the office of the President.
“However, the emergence of Mr Peter Obi as of today has fulfilled all the expectations of Ndigbo to participate in the 2023 Presidential elections which include winning the primaries of the party and being nominated as the Presidential candidate of the party.
“The situation in the country today offers Ndigbo the opportunity to relaunch themselves in all socio-political dimensions.
“Yet, we must keep asking the rest of Nigerians, ‘what do they really want to do with Ndigbo? The decision will be theirs and the response will be ours’.
“We rather used the opportunity to thank all the eminent Nigerians that have lent their support or thrown their weight behind the cause of justice, equity, unity, progress and corporate existence of Nigeria in the person of Mr Peter Obi.
“For Ohanaeze Ndigbo, it is either one is with us or against us but never will Nigerians be distracted, since history beckons. For several years to come, it will be recorded as “once upon a time, Ndigbo were shortchanged in the political calculations of Nigeria and Mr Peter Obi from Anambra State braved up to change the narratives and that he was able to fill the Nigerian expectations.
“All the dynamics and intrigues associated with the above scenario will form the essential component of the Igbo history.”
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