Beyond the January 10, 2025, date for the election of new executive of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, there are lingering conflicts of interests and splinter groups working against the socio-cultural group than the current row on zoning formula can diffuse, LAWRENCE NJOKU reports.
Last week’s move by apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, to resolve its constitutional logjam by agreeing to rotate the office of the president-general to Rivers State and the conduct of election on January 10, next year, may not entirely address the lingering crisis in the organisation since 2021.
Although the issue of the state that would produce the next president-general had unsettled the group, since the death of the occupant of the office, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu from Imo State, Ohanaeze Ndigbo had been burdened with several other issues.
Aside from Iwuanyanwu, two other top officials, who in fact stood in the election that produced the outgoing executive, former deputy president-general from Rivers State, Chief Joel Kroham and President-general, Prof. George Obiozor, from Imo State, all died in office. Kroham died in 2022 and had not been buried when Obiozor joined him in December of the same year. It was in the bid to complete the tenure of Imo State that Iwuanyanwu was appointed last year.
Since Iwuanyanwu’s burial last month, agitations had ensued on whether an acting president-general should be nominated from the Vice Presidents since there is no deputy or should Imo State be allowed to continue in office or whether the leadership void should continue until January next year, when Rivers State, whose turn it is to produce the next president should do so.
The constitution approved rotation of offices among the five states in the Southeast region as well as Delta and Rivers states in alphabetical order. There is also a provision for a single term of four years.
It should naturally cede power to Rivers State after Imo State in the alphabetical order. Imo state turn began in 2021 with the election of Prof. George Obiozor.
The constitutional logjam was not envisaged. But it could have been avoided if the leadership of the organisation was prepared to follow it. But while the speculation continued as to whether the constitution would be upheld coupled with the alleged silence of the rest of the elected officials on the development, reports spread about an underground move to manipulate the rotational clause in the constitution and deny Rivers State the opportunity to step into the group’s presidency. Those who got wind of the plot alleged that the incumbent Secretary General, Ambassador Okay Emuchay, would be made to continue to preside over the activities of the group in acting capacity.
This was the contention that the NEC tried to lay to rest when its members met last week. National Publicity Secretary of the organisation, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, who had assured a week earlier that there was no crisis in the group, stressing that reports alluding such was from fifth columnist working to destabilise the union, adding that a soon to be convened NEC meeting would address issues bothering on strengthening the organisation.
Indeed, it was the outcome of this meeting that Ogbonnia had brought to the fore last week when he stated that: “the NEC reaffirmed their commitment to the provisions of the Ohanaeze constitution; to the effect that it is the turn of Rivers State to produce the next president-general for Ohanaeze Ndigbo come January 2025.”
He had continued that the meeting had “resolved that Ambassador Okay Emuchay (Secretary-General) in consultation with the Southeast Governors, Igbo Senators, traditional rulers, town unions, the Clergy, stakeholders, and the Ohanaeze structures should convene a meeting of Imeobi Ohanaeze as soon as possible to set up an electoral umpire for the purpose of the 2025 Ohanaeze election.”
Even since the meeting rose with the decision, many have expressed doubts over the time frame within which to appoint the electoral umpires that shall be drawn from the various states and the actual time left for the conduct of the election, insisting that it could be a ploy to alter the process. The last election was held on January 10, 2021. The implication is that the coming election will be held on the same day next year.
But a former president of the youth wing, Mazi Bismarck Orji, has stated that a month is good enough to conduct the election into the organisation.He said: “The election that brought in Chief Nina Nwodo was held in one month. I remember that even the Imeobi meeting was held twice that month before the actual election. So, let nobody complain about the time frame”.
Orji explained that what should agitate the minds is the level of divisions in Ohanaeze Ndigbo such that various persons are speaking at the same time in the guise of representing Ndigbo. He insisted that the problems are so deep-rooted with a potential to continue to tear the group apart if not addressed, adding that it has been there since 2021.
“What should worry us is how to have one Ohanaeze Ndigbo. You cannot have a strong organisation with what is happening now. My worry is that with the level of pecuniary fortunes those behind these groups are making, will they be able to stand down their activities and subsume to the new leadership that will come on board soon?
“The second one is the various interests of politicians that have penetrated the group and who are willing to sponsor dissident factions and groups against the collective will of the people. It is all about interests using the name of the organisation,” he stated.
Indeed, since 2021, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been speaking from two rival groups. One led by Obiozor, who emerged from the national election held in Owerri, Imo State, and the other by Chidi Ibeh. Ibe’s group with Okechukwu Isiguzoro as Secretary has refused entreaties to subsume his group. While the Obiozor group, which later metamorphosed to Iwuanyanwu as president-general, has continued to operate from the national secretariat of the organisation in Enugu, the location of the Ibeh group is not known but they have continued to speak on behalf of Ndigbo.
In the same vein, there are several Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth groups speaking for Ndigbo. One is led by Okwu Nnabuike; the other by Igboayaka Igboayaka; another by Damian Okafor and then Chukwuma Okpalaezeukwu.
Shortly before he died this year, Iwuanyanwu had lamented the damage the dissident groups had done on Ndigbo, threatening to take the names of those behind them to the Imeobi Ohanaeze and to all communities in Igboland to be ostracised.
“We have decided to take their activities to Imeobi because if they are not stopped now, they will destroy Igboland,” he had stated in May this year. It is not however clear if he succeeded in taking their matter to Imeobi Ohanaeze before his death in July this year.
Recently the main Ohanaeze Ndigbo, which he led, took an action in court against the Isiguzoro group to stop him from parading himself as rival secretary general. The matter is still in court.
The Guardian recalls that following the discontent in Ohanaeze Ndigbo soon after the emergence of Obiozor in 2021, stakeholders had asked the college of Bishops, which included Catholic, Anglican, and Methodists’ Archbishops and Bishops in the Southeast to look into the matter with a view to fostering peace in Igboland.
Part of the recommendations the group made was for Obiozor to continue in office while the deputy president-general from the Ibeh led group, Uche Okwukwu, should be absorbed into the main Ohanaeze among other recommendations that could accommodate other interests.
Iwuanyanwu also got the report on June 1, 2023, shortly after he assumed office through its Secretary and Bishop of Methodist Diocese, Umuahia, Bishop Chibuzor Opoko.
Iwuanyanwu, however, believed that entrenching more Igbo into his administration by creating committees that could work for the overall development of the Southeast was better than the recommendations of the group, hence, the over 20 Committees that he created with diverse responsibilities.
With the failure of the truce arrangement as suggested by the college of Bishops, however, the Ibeh led group has continued to speak differently from the main Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
A chieftain of Ohanaeze, Albert Igwe told The Guardian that even if the Iwuanyanwu-led group had implemented the report of the College of Bishops, it could still not have ended the friction in Ohanaeze Ndigbo, as according to him “the political leaders are the ones sponsoring the factions to feather their political interests.”
He said: “Otherwise, how come that the same governors, who were united in the choice of Obiozor by either travelling to Owerri for the election or sending their representatives to the event, have remained quiet to the desecration of the group and Igboland in general by the actions of these groups? It is on record that two groups have been speaking for Ohanaeze Ndigbo since 2021. One is always churning out statements from Abakaliki and another, Enugu. Who is behind them? It is a challenge which the new executive must rise up to. How they will address it is not known to me but I have my fears”
Asked about his fears and why he thinks the divisions may not be solved by a new executive, he stated: “It is a former governor that is sponsoring the dissident groups with other few politicians. It seems currently that four of these governors are minding their reelections, leaving one of the governors to control other affairs in the region.”
He added that unless there is a common agreement to support “whoever becomes the president-general from Rivers state, these factions will subsist because of the deepened pecuniary interests of those behind it”, adding that, “Ohanaeze is fast losing steam from the original ideas of those who formed the group.”
Another chieftain of Ohanaeze, Lambert Ebere, said: “These groups have willingly yielded to the services of politicians and that is a big challenge. As much as there is nothing else to do, they will continue to use the name of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to survive. That is the greatest challenge that will face the new executive of Ndigbo.”
