By Johnson Nwankwo
Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Monday, lambasted the special adviser to the president on information and strategy, Chief Bayo Onanuga, over his allegations against the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi, concerning the August 1-10 nationwide protests against FG’s economic shortcomings.
The pan-Igbo group also said Ndigbo would not participate in the planned nationwide protest against federal government’s economic policies.
Mr Onanuga had alleged that “the malcontents planning to stage nationwide protests are supporters of Peter Obi, the failed presidential candidate of the Labour Party”, and that Obi “should be held responsible for whatever crisis emanates from the protest.”
Ohanaeze, in a release by its spokesman, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, frowned at Onanuga’s claims that the Obidients were “plotting to unseat President Bola Tinubu under the guise of protests”.
According Ogbonnia, “Several gullible undiscerning persons have joined Onanuga to state specifically that the Igbo are the propellers of the forthcoming nationwide protest.”
Ohanaeze, in the release, described the remarks by Onanuga “as true to type”, recalling that, “On March 19, 2023, Onanuga was reported by several news media to have issued a serious warning to the Igbo stating that ‘2023 will be the last time of Igbo interference in Lagos politics’.”
Ogbonnia wrote, “Ohanaeze Ndigbo views Onanuga’s dispositions towards anything Igbo as unthoughtful, repugnant, inflammable, repugnant and full of deep-seated hate.”
Ohanaeze told Onanuga that “Nigerians of all persuasions, North, South, East and West are in pains of diverse forms: excruciating hardships, poverty, naira downward spiral, incessant kidnappings, banditry, farmers-herdsmen conflict, most terrifying insecurity, joblessness, rising food prices and cost of living challenges, and that the prevailing hardship in Nigeria is blind to ethnicity.”
The pan-Igbo group continued, “It is necessary to inform Onanuga that this is a time for the Presidency to initiate policies that will assuage the downtrodden, including Obidients.
“And to inform the Onanugas that issuing threats to masses, the hungry and angry, the vulnerable and indeed those who no longer fear any fall is the most inconceivable line of action for any government in a fragile society. Instead of broadening the minds to creative thinking and welfare programs for the masses, the Onanugas are chasing rat when the house is on fire.”
Ohanaeze Ndigbo reiterated its position with respect to the nationwide protest, stating that the group had directed the Igbo “not to join in the protest against President Bola Tinubu”.
The president general of Ohanaeze, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, in the release, said, “Igbo youths and youths from other ethnic groups at various times expressed their dissatisfaction with events in the country. It is clear to us that when youths from other tribes of the country are involved, they are reprimanded and forgiven; but when the Igbo youths are involved they are arrested, incarcerated and even charged for serious offences. For example, the arrest and detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu generated a lot of problems for the Igbos” amongst others.
“Emphatically, the current hardship in Nigeria is the comeuppance of Igbophobia. It is an unavoidable outcome of an orchestrated injustice, marginalization, callous conspiracies, corporate shenanigans and ethnic bigotry against the Igbo.
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo stands on a firm wicket based on reason, history and experience, to state that there can never be peace, progress and national development when there is a deliberate government policy of injustice, tantrums and brimstones against a vibrant, capacious, resourceful, resilient and populous ethnic group such as the Igbo.
“On Saturday, March 25, 2023, during the occasion of one year in Office of Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the governor of Anambra State, the former president of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, condemned the persistent aversion to the people of southeastern extraction, which he described as Igbophobia. Obasanjo added that unless Nigeria throws its doors open to merit and full inclusion of the Igbo in national affairs, the country will continue to flounder and grope in the dark.
“The Igbo are once again requested not to join the forthcoming nationwide protest. When President Muhammadu Buhari appointed about 15 service chiefs in Nigeria and Igbo was secluded, did the lopsided policy abate the security situation in Nigeria? And have we died? And many more…? It was Robert Schuller who posited that ‘Tough times never last but tough people do’.”
