Igbo leaders will meet with President Muhammadu today with a list of demands.
Top on the list is the President of Igbo extraction in 2023 and a political solution to the case of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu and other detained agitators.
The leaders rose from the Imeobi meeting of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide in Enugu State yesterday and moved to Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.
The President is in Ebonyi on a two-day working visit.
TheImeobi is the highest decision-making organ of Ohanaeze.
Elder statesmen, including First Republic Minister Chief Mbazuluike Amechi and Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, are part of the delegation.
In a communiqué read at the end of the Imeobi meeting by the Secretary General, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, Ohanaeze condemned the worsening security situation in the country.
It believes the release of Kanu and other Igbo youths would help restore peace in the region.
The communiqué reads in part: “We condemn in its entirety the worsening security situation in the Southeast and call on all Igbos to put all hands on deck to halt the situation.
“Ohanaeze strongly believes that the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and other Igbo youths in detention is the first crucial step towards restoring peace and security in the Southeast.
“We are convinced that the Nnamdi Kanu issue can only be resolved through dialogue.
“Ndigbo are irrevocably committed to a Nigerian President from the Southeast zone in 2023.
“Imeobi Ohanaeze hereby empowers the President-General to constitute the Political Action Committee (PAC) amongst others that will achieve the desired results in all the issues raised at the Imeobi.
“The President-General, Prof. George Obiozor and the Secretary-General, Amb. Okey Emuchay or their authorised spokesman are the only officials authorised by the Imeobi to issue statements on behalf of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide.”
The Imeobi congratulated the Ohanaeze National Executive Committee (NEC) elected on January 10.
It called on the Igbo nation to give the executive their full support “which they have earned and deserved”.
“Imeobi also calls on those aggrieved with the outcome of the election to lend their support to the current leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
“There is a need to redouble our efforts towards the ongoing voter registration exercise by sensitising our people on the importance of the exercise and getting their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) where they reside,” Ohanaeze said.
‘Don’t run as VP’
At the Imeobi meeting, Ohanaeze urged politicians from the Southeast not to accept the Vice President slot ahead of next year’s presidential election.
Prof Obiozor said: “I wish to use this opportunity to encourage all the presidential aspirants from the Southeast to remain focused, tenacious and optimistic.
“In fact, we are fully committed to the resolution by the Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum (SMBLF) that no southerner, in fact, a southeasterner for that matter, should denigrate himself or herself with the position of Vice President.”
He said PAC would meet with eminent Nigerians to persuade them to appreciate the need for a Southeasterner to be elected President.
“The clamour for an Igbo to be elected as a President of Nigeria is morally and historically justifiable. It is a project every Igbo must commit himself or herself.
“To this end, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has made contacts with several Nigerian leaders for the Southeast to produce a President.
“All the double dealings about zoning and rotation of power are an orchestrated conspiracy to deprive the Southeast of the right to produce a President.
“I want to assure all of you that hard as they may try, they will surely fail,” he said
On the Monday sit-at-home which has crippled economic activities in Southeast, Ohanaeze describes it as a slur on the Igbo.
The socio-cultural organisation said it was “strange for a group to face the barrel of the gun inwards”.
Prof Obiozor added: “Many people have estimated the huge loss the Southeast incurs on a weekly basis as a result of the sit at home order.
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo has tried severally to persuade our youth to realise the consequences of their actions.”
On insecurity, the President General said: “The advent of insecurity in the Southeast is both bizarre and dramatic.
“The Southeast had been adjudged the most serene and peaceful zone in Nigeria until April 5, 2021, when gunmen attacked the correctional facility in Owerri, Imo State and freed a total of 1,844 prison inmates.
“Since the incident, insecurity in the Southeast has attained an unprecedented unbearable crescendo.
“In condemning the spate of violence in the Southeast, Ohanaeze Ndigbo also called attention to the strategic capacity of the local non-state actors to overwhelm a highly fortified Correctional Centre and discharge a total of 1,844 inmates without any arrest.”
Dignitaries at the meeting included former Ohanaeze President General, Nnia Nwodo; the presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and former Chief Judge of Anambra State, Peter Umeadi; former Military Governor of Anambra State, Allison Madueke; former national chairman of APGA Chief Victor Umeh, Chris Iwuanyanwu, Prof. Fred Eze, amongst others.