APC not endorsed as Igbo party – Ohanaeze

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo, today maintained that it has not adopted the All Progressive Congress (APC) as the party that should be supported by the Igbos. Making this known in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, a prominent member of the Caretaker Committee of the group, Aja Nwachukwu argued that the group dis-associated itself from the comments credited to the Chairman of the Committee, Chief Ralph Obioha, stating that it had endorsed the APC as the party for the Igbo.

He stressed that the views expressed by the chairman were personal and did not reflect the collective interest of Igbo people in Nigeria and beyond. According to Nwachukwu, "What Ralph Obioha said does not represent the collective interest of Ndigbo. In our meeting, which took place at Nike Street in Enugu, we did not say we were supporting APC or the Peoples Democratic Party.

"What we discussed in our meeting in Enugu was that we were not going to be partisan, and we commended our brothers and sisters for voting according to their conscience in the last presidential elections."H He further stated that, "It was premature for Ohanaeze Ndigbo to take sides with any political party in the country. Any resolution reached by the committee must be ratified by the congress before it would become a policy statement of the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation.

"At the meeting, we also commended the caretaker committee chairman for sending a congratulatory message to the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) and President Goodluck Jonathan for his show of maturity and magnanimity at the polls. We subsequently called on Ndigbo to re-strategise and get a very strong platform to negotiate the interest of Igbo at all levels of governance. Anybody talking about party A or B is on his own; that was not a congress resolution. 

"We agreed that we were not going to be partisan as we are satisfied with the elections in Ebonyi State. The organisation’s duty was to play a fatherly role on behalf of Ndigbo and therefore warned, that no one should draw the organisation into controversy."

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