Ahead of the January 2025 election for the new President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, the organization’s chieftain, Chief Chekwas Okorie, has declared that no individual or group of people can stop Rivers State from producing the next leader of the apex Igbo socio-cultural group.
This is just as the ministerial leader of World Zionist Union in the Southeast, Prophet Godfrey Gbujie, has warned that any plot to stop Rivers from producing the next president of Ohanaeze would spell doom for the unity of the Igbo race.
Ohanaeze has the principle of rotational presidency in alphabetical order among the member states with Abia, Anambra, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States having taken their turns in that order. The 2025 election is expected to produce a Rivers State native as president general, but there are insinuations that some forces are trying to truncate that
However, fielding questions from newsmen in Enugu, Okorie, who is a one-time national chairman of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), insisted that there was no leadership or any crisis at all in Ohanaeze as regards whether Rivers State would produce the next Igbo leader next year.
He said Ohanaeze deliberately decided to allow the little time left to get to January so as to come up with the right candidates. Okorie, who traced the history of the formation of Ohanaeze from Igbo Forum, said it was meant to unite and galvanize the Igbo to face the post-war challenges and bring them back to prosperity.
He said: “I was a second-year undergraduate at the University of Nigeria Enugu Campus in 1976 when what you now know as Ohanaeze Ndigbo was formed. It started in 1976 barely six months after the war when Igbo leaders gathered at the residence of the late Eze Akanu Ibiam in Enugu to form what was called, Igbo Forum.
“I will just mention a few of the top leaders at the time for you to have an idea of what Ohanaeze was looking like at that time. Then, we didn’t have president general, we had chairman. The chairman of the Igbo Forum then was Dr. Akanu Ibiam. The vice chairman then was Hon. Justice Daddy Onyeama, who had just come down that year from his tour of duty at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Of course, he had served at the Supreme Court of Nigeria before then.
“The secretary of Ohanaeze was Chief Jerome Udoji and my uncle, Mr. Joe Eyiagu was the assistant secretary, who was also the permanent secretary of the Eastern Nigeria Ministry of Agriculture and rural development. He was the one that actually brought me into the Ohanaeze then because they needed a young man that could be trusted to be part of the meetings and run errands for them. These were all senior citizens. Membership then was strictly by invitation.
“From the Rivers we’re talking about now, we had the likes of Senator Francis Ela, Dr. Obi Nwali, Eze Woluchem, Eze Wonodi, Nwuche, Aguma. These were elders, who were coming from Port Harcourt to Enugu every month because we were holding meetings every month.
“Then, from the Delta side, we had Chief Dennis Osadebe, Prof. Ijioma, and some other leaders who were coming from there.
“Ohanaeze had just one patron and we have never had another since then and that was Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. So, the idea was that after the war and when most of the Federal Government policies against those that were defeated had been announced, and these leaders saw where we were headed and felt like we needed to put our acts together to face the post-war challenges. And I remember Dr Azikiwe saying repeatedly each time he attended the meeting. He was never regular. He said that the worst thing that could happen to any group that lost a civil war is the loss of self esteem. And to restore the lost esteem, we required conscientious focused leadership. So, that was what propelled us. In 1979, the name, Igbo Forum, was now changed to Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
“I was the secretary of the panel that wrote the constitution of Ohanaeze that brought in rotational presidency in alphabetical order. Nnia Nwodo was the chairman of that panel. So, we produced the Constitution that says the way to go is to rotate and we started with Abia.
“In the case of Imo State, something that was not envisaged and therefore could not have been captured by the constitution of the organization, was a situation where the president general died in office. And even before he died, a few months earlier, the deputy president general from Rivers, had died. So, we lost these two. So, what was paramount was for Imo to complete their four years in office before the seat will rotate. And so, there was no way we could have gone elsewhere except Imo. And that was how the late Chief Iwuanyanwu emerged. Again unfortunately, still in office, Chief Iwuanyanwu passed.
“We have looked at it, the time that Chief Iwuanyanwu’s tenure would have ended would be January. So, we couldn’t have done anything according to Igbo tradition until he had been buried. Is it between the time that he was buried few weeks ago and January that we will be struggling for another Imo person to complete his remaining tenure?
“So, we decided not to go into that but to use the period to be able to join our brothers and sisters and our kindreds in Rivers State to produce the next president general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo. It is their turn. Nobody can tamper with that. If you try it, people like us will rise against it. If you try it, you destroy Igbo unity that we’ve taken so many years to build”.
He continued: “Yes, some people from Rivers, especially the young politicians, who were not born in 1976, the foundation members were older than their own parents, would come out to say whether they are Igbo or not. I tell you, there are several ethnic groups that make up the Igbo race in Rivers State. So, everything about Igbo people in Rivers is not centered on one ethnic group, as some people would want us to believe.
“I can assure you that some work is going on. Prominent Rivers people are very busy working on this and we’re in collaboration with them. Rivers will be expected to present three people, not just an anointed person. And the who Igbo people will participate in choosing the best of the three.
“But if they decide to do what Delta did, we will not say no because in the case of Anioma, Col. Achuzia wanted to run because he was the secretary general at the time. Pat Utomi wanted to run, Uwechue and Emma Okocha wanted to run too. These were aspirants. But leaders of Anioma met at the Asagba’s palace where they decided to present only one candidate. They did that to show how united they were. And they presented Uwechue and we said so long as it is coming from this high level leadership, everybody endorsed it. That was how Uwechue became the president general.
“But when it was the turn of Ebonyi State, the governor of Ebonyi at the time had his own candidate. But Igariwey was not his candidate. We felt that Igariwey knew more about Ohanaeze than whoever that was being imported to come and lead and we voted for Igariwey. That was how he emerged too.
“The same thing is going to happen if Rivers toes that path. You can’t just bring a nobody and say because he’s from Rivers. The challenge is on Rivers to ensure that it will not be their time that somebody who will lead Ohanaeze will not meet the necessary requirements to be presented to the world as the leader of the entire Igbo race.
“So, there is no crisis. We deliberately decided to allow the little time left to get to January. We’re not resting on our oars. We’re using that period to make sure that they come up with somebody. And they will”.
However, in a letter addressed to the secretary general of Ohanaeze, Prophet Gbujie noted an ongoing conspiracy against the Igbo in Rivers State ahead of the January election.
“I plead with and pray you to ensure that you separate and distance yourself and
the very Ohanaeze which is divinely bestowed and entrusted on your shoulders from ongoing conspiracy to deny our brothers and sisters from Rivers State their “one – in – 28 year chance producing a president general of Ohaneze Ndigbo next year, 2025,” he said.
The prophet disclosed that the said conspiracy was revealed to him for advice by late president, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu sometime in February this year, with the late leader vehemently opposing the plot.
He advised the secretary general to meet and commune with the leaders, active members and traditional rulers in the state on whom to choose because their collective choice is very crucial for the survival of the organization.
