A report credited to one Ambassador Tony Obizoba, who claimed to be the Director-General, Implementation and Strategic Planning, Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly Worldwide, had said that Peter Obi’s presidency was not destined to happen in 2023.
But reacting to the report, Ohanaeze in a rebuttal issued on Monday by its National Publicity Secretary, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, described the report as “most reckless, irresponsible and mischievous.”
Ohanaeze stated that it would have ignored the publication to avoid dignifying such “maladjusted, impish scaremongers,” but noted that silence “in this circumstance would mean giving validity to such fallacy by the unsuspecting gullible public.
“For the purpose of clarity, Ohanaeze Ndigbo vehemently dissociates itself from any remark that suggests that Peter Obi is not destined to rule Nigeria.”
The apex Igbo body unequivocally stated that it had “sufficient evidence and empirical records to show that Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed won the presidential election held on Saturday, February 25, 2023.”
The statement partly read, “Ohanaeze Nidigbo is impressed, thrilled and fascinated by the groundswell and intimidating mass movement, which has come to signify the consciousness of the paradigm shift from a consumption economy to a production economy, which the Obi-Datti movement symbolises in the present day Nigeria.
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo is proud to state that Peter Obi is a man whose track record of accomplishments has countervailed the regrettable and despicable tailspin of Nigerian bourgeois cash and carry democracy.
“Thus, Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora have, through the Obi phenomenon, demonstrated a loud irrepressible and indelible landmark; an irrevocable corroboration that evil men thrive because good men go to sleep.”
Ohanaeze stated that Nigerians and world leaders would continue to celebrate Obi for over one thousand years to come, adding that he would be remembered as a man who with a mere force of “morals, uprightness, persuasions and goodwill has changed the political narratives of the most populous and backward African country.”
The statement added, “One major challenge that has afflicted the Igbo for some decades now is the adulteration of the communal sensibility, the Igbo sense of originality. This is one of the harsh realities of the Nigerian civil war where Nigerian soldiers comprising diverse ethnics including mercenaries from Niger, Chad Republics, etc occupied the Igbo land.
“As happens in such military occupations, some Igbo women who went astray from the Igbo enclaves were assaulted, debauched and adulterated. These women later came back with pregnancies to give births to monstrous hybrids.
“Some of these rabble-rousing products of adultery who, given the openness of the Igbo society, have gained access to Igbo red caps have become the mischief-makers, charlatans, social climbers and media navigators who leech on the invaluable footprints of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to issue press releases for narrow, perverse and illicit pecuniary interests.
“And, these characters have been reminded to no avail that Ohanaeze represents the Igbo totem, emotions, collective consciousness, politicality and social solidarity.
“The Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, MFR, expressed deep shock that a faceless meddlesome interloper such as Tony Chiemelu Obizoba could be taken seriously by the media. Of course, it is highly inconceivable that at a point the Nigerian collective aspiration has gained an irresistible momentum, a true Igbo will make such reckless, shameless, embarrassing and demoralising statements using the hallowed name of Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
“We wish to use this opportunity to point out that the social media revolution has inadvertently thrown up an entirely new generation of half-baked, insidious ‘journalists’ who do not place value on the ethics and codes of the profession, chief of which is investigative journalism. Otherwise, there is hardly any Nigerian journalist who cannot distinguish between those who speak for Ohanaeze on the one hand and the spies and charlatans on the other.”
