Ohanaeze
Ndiigbo recently led a delegation to the Ebonyi State Assembly in Abakaliki
in preparation for the scheduled meeting between the premier Igbo political
group and President Obasanjo to discuss the Sharia riots. The group had,
in the earlier liaison with members of the Enugu State House of Assembly,
lent their full support to the call by the 5 Southeast governors for a
future confederal arrangement for Nigeria. The Ohanaeze, through their
spokesman, Chief Ojukwu who led Biafra during the Civil War, affirmed
that they were ready to submit themselves to the leadership of the governors.
This statement must have been intended to ginger up the uneasy relationship
that has been mooted between the execute governors of the Southeast states
and the Ohanaeze.
In an earlier meeting of the 5 Southeast governors over Sharia crisis,
they aired their angst at the current developments in parts of the country
and called for political restructuring that will culminate in a confederal
set up for Nigeria. This bold stance has rattled a few nerves at Aso Rock
and elsewhere because the governors’ demand was totally unanticipated.
President Obasanjo has since been reported to have denounced the desirability
for a confederation at this phase of the nation’s history.
The rapprochement between the 5 elected executive governors of the Southeast
and Ohanaeze Ndiigbo is certainly a welcome development because the two
groups can now better harmonize their activities in order to articulate
the interests of Ndiigbo more effectively. All the governors of the Southeast
zone were elected under the auspices of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),
the same party that controls power in the Federal Government.
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