Ohaneze youth council blames southeast governors for the poor showing of Igbos in APC and PDP primaries

PAN-Igbo socio-cultural group Ohanaeze Ndigbo's youth wing has lambasted the five governors of the southeast geo-political zone over the woeful showing of Igbo candidates in the recent presidential primaries of Nigeria's two leading political parties.

Over the last fortnight, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have both held their p0residential primaries. Former Lagos State governor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu emerged as the APC presidential candidate, with former vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar won the PDP primaries.

In both cases, none of the Igbo candidates put up a good showing and never came near winning either of the primaries. Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, the president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide, blamed the southeast governors, saying that they traded-off the people’s pride and destiny.

He asked the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (Massob) and the Association of South East Town Unions (Asetu), to focus their anger on the governors and not the delegates. Both groups had disclosed that they were compiling the names of southeast delegates to the conventions, with the aim of handing out appropriate punishments to them.

However, Mr Nnabuike said: “The real enemies of Ndigbo are the governors who ordered the delegates to vote for non-Igbos. It is a show of shame that the southeast governors could not muster votes to at least show the rest of the country that we are serious with the demand for a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction.

“Instead, they traded-off our pride with their selfish interest. They have by this singular act shown themselves to be the real enemies of Ndigbo.

“We, therefore, call on the Massob and Asetu to direct their anger towards the governors, who must tell us what happened to Igbo votes during the conventions. Any attempt to attack the delegates is an exercise in futility and would be resisted."