2023: Ohanaeze endorses Peter Obi

The apex social and cultural organization of the Igbo, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has endorsed the Labor Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, ahead of the February 25 general election.

In a statement by his spokesman, Chiedozie Ogbonnia, on Tuesday, Ohanaeze said, besides, other regional socio-political groups also supported Mr. Obi when they gathered at the Wells Carlton Hotel, Asokoro, Abuja, on Thursday.

Other groups that supported the LP candidate during the meeting, according to the statement, included the Central Belt Forum led by the president, Bitrus Porgu, the Pan Niger Delta Forum led by Edwin Clarke, the Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organization, Afenifere, led by Ayo Adebanjo.

Ohanaeze said the group separately recognized that Mr. Obi has the necessary capacity and competence to rescue Nigeria from its current misery and urged Nigerians to recognize and seize the rare opportunity the LP candidate is presenting.

“In unison, all acknowledge that Obi is the best thing God has done for Nigeria in this century; game changer, moral warrior, archetype of democracy, popular sentiment of Nigerian youths, philosopher of abundance, wise resource manager, ethnic barrier- breaker and quintessential audacious Igbo icon,” the group said.

He urged Igbos to remember that “politics is not always the art of doing things, but usually the art of choosing between reasonable alternatives.”

The group suggested that it would be futile and counterproductive for residents of the south-east to continue their agitation against the perceived marginalization of the region and against the LP candidate ahead of the general election.

“Now that Nigerians are moving from the season of despair to the summer of hope, through their son, Mr. Peter Obi, can it be felt that agitations based on marginalization and other forms of relative deprivation must continue?

“Is it wise to turn the barrel of the gun inward? And is it wise for the honorable Igbo sons and daughters to harm themselves such as sit-at-home syndrome, destroying public utilities, etc.,” said Ohanaeze.

2023: ‘It’s the southeast turn’

Ohanaeze said although the group is not “eloquent about partisan politics,” it is standing firm before it is the turn of the South-East to produce Nigeria’s president in 2023.

“To this end, Ohanaeze insists that with the political culture of sharing, zoning and power rotation that has existed since Nigeria existed, it is the turn of the South-East to produce the president. Nigeria in 2023,” said the group, stressing that the position is irreversible.

‘PDP, APC machinations’

There have been calls from Southeast leaders that the region should be allowed to produce its first president in 2023.

But the rule All Progressive Congress and the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the two dominant political parties in Nigeria, chose their candidates outside the region during the separate presidential elections in May.

Both parties then ignored the region when choosing their vice presidential candidates.

Ohanaeze criticized what he called “machinations” by political parties against the possibility of the South-east producing a president in 2023.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo observes with interest, sadness and contempt the bourgeois cash and carry out politics, conspiracy, cold intrigue, betrayal, hypocrisy, opportunism and other forms of intrigue in the main political parties, against the south-east, even from the least desirable. , ” he said.

‘Obi’s terrible structure’

Mr. Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, is one of the presidential candidates of the PDP in 2022.

He left the party days into the PDP primaries saying there were practices in the party that were inconsistent with his “persona and beliefs”. He then signed on to LP.

---

ALSO READ: Tinubu campaign council slams Peter Obi for supporting currency redesign

---

Since emerging as a LP candidate before the 2023 general election and subsequently choosing Yusuf Ahmed-Datti as a running mate, there is a lot of support for his candidacy especially in the south-east and south-south regions of the country.

However, his opponents have repeatedly claimed that the LP candidate will not win the February 25 polls because he does not have a political structure.

But Ohanaeze dismissed the “lack of structure” comment, saying support for Mr Obi and his running mate, Mr Ahmed-Datti, had developed into the political structure needed for electoral victory.

“Students of political history will remember that the idea of ​​a talented person developed concentrically into an ideology, a movement, a revolution and finally a political structure. And now, the Obi-Datti movement has become an irreversible, unworkable and terrifying structure in Nigeria,” Ohanaeze said.