*Says IPOB leader can’t arrogate leadership of Igboland to himself
*Can you lead Igbo to war? Okorocha asks Kanu
According to him, “The news that reached us in the past few days that Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of IPOB, had declared that there would be no election in Anambra in November is shocking and disturbing. I hereby countermand that declaration as President-General of Ohaneze.
The Ohanaeze Ndigbo, an apex socio-cultural organisation, has disowned the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, over his call for a boycott of Anambra gubernatorial election in November.
The group accused Kanu of breaching the undertaking that led to his release from detention.
President-General of Ohanaeze, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, who made the statement while addressing members of the Anambra State House of Assembly at the legislative complex, Awka, frowned at the way Kanu was behaving over the crave for the Biafran state.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo’s condemnation of Nnamdi Kanu was coming on the dayThe DEFENDER published an opinion titled, “The excesses of Nnmadi Kanu: Those I pity”, by a Lagos based journalist and social media activist, in which Igbo leaders were accused of keeping silence over the way the man for whose cause they engaged in campaigns of calumny calling President Muhammadu Buhari a dictator who did not obey the rule of law while in detention.
The Igbo group’s leader, Nwodo said,“I’m just being paternal; the way I commended them as my children is the way I have the right to chastise them when they go wrong. We don’t need this heat up,” he said.
According to him, “The news that reached us in the past few days that Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of IPOB, had declared that there would be no election in Anambra in November is shocking and disturbing. I hereby countermand that declaration as President-General of Ohaneze.
“Whereas Ohanaeze understands the marginalisation and unfair treatment of Igbo which have given rise to self-determination movements in Igboland, leaders of these movements must not arrogate to themselves the supreme leadership of Igboland.
“Statements of the kind credited to Nnamdi Kanu are provocative, misleading and unproductive. Why should Anambra people be denied the opportunity to choose their own leader? Why should any of us who are not from Anambra, no matter how highly placed, descend to the arena and dictate to Anambra people when to vote, whether to vote or who to vote for?
“Anambra, nay Igbos, are still part and parcel of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Yes, we are not happy with our treatment in Nigeria. Yes, some of us want Biafra. Yes, some of us prefer a restructured Federal Republic of Nigeria. But the fact remains that we are still part and parcel of the present Federal Republic of Nigeria, bound by its laws, no matter how repressive or unjust,” he said.
Earlier, the Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, speaking through his Senior Special Assistant on Legislative Matters, Chief Chiedozie Ezeugwa, said that the state government was committed to the Igbo cause.
