The apex Igbo social-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has denied the news making the rounds that it would participate fully in the May 29 inauguration of the President-elect, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu.
Ohanaeze was reacting to a press release attributed to one Mr Okechukwu Isiguzoro who had claimed that the Ime-Obi Ohanaeze Ndigbo has mandated that every agitation for the 2023 election should come to an end.
The statement also disclosed that the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi is the candidate of the future and that nobody should pick up a fight they could not finish, against Bola Tinubu.
But in a statement issued by the spokesman of Ohanaeze, Dr. Alex Ogbonnia denied making the statement.
Ogbonnia noted that there were several other embarrassing publications aimed at tarnishing the image of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide in particular and the Igbo nation in general.
He stated that the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide was inclined to ignore the current press release by Isiguzoro because they had severally informed the mass media that the Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo remains Ambassador Okey Emuchay.
The statement confirmed that the said Isiguzoro was an interloper who used the hallowed name of Ohanaeze Ndigbo for narrow interests.
He pointed out that they have at various times informed the unsuspecting public to ignore mischief makers as impostors, charlatans and media navigators who leech on the invaluable footprints of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to issue press releases for narrow, perverse and illicit pecuniary interests.
He, however, maintained that since silence might be misconstrued as giving validity to such a whimsical figment of a transactional imagination, this rebuttal became very imperative.
Ogbonnia insisted that, for the avoidance of doubt, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide led by Chief Dr. Engr. Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, did not issue any statement with respect to the “Inauguration of President-Elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu”.
“It needs to be emphasised that Ohanaeze Ndigbo does not wax eloquent on partisan politics, except when it becomes exceedingly necessary; and does not in any way begrudge or antagonise any Igbo for choice of political party, personal or group political ambition but to implicate Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide in personal pecuniary interest is not only unethical, despicable and unscrupulous but in all ramifications, connotes a criminal intent.”
