Igbo’s apex socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, FCT chapter has distanced itself from a planned endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari for second term.
The group made this known in a statement released on Thursday.
The FCT Chairman of the group, Odozi Nwodozi, in the statement he personally signed, disclosed that the planners were parading themselves as representatives of Ohanaeze which they are not.
However, the group said its stance on the planned endorsement did not amount to opposition to the president’s second term ambition.
The statement read, “It has come to the knowledge of Ohanaeze Ndigbo FCT chapter that renegades from the disbanded Okechukwu Isiguzoro-led Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Wing and the Callista Adimachukwu Ohanaeze Ndigbo Women are presently in Abuja for a purported endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari for the 2019 presidency.
“This shameful exercise which is being coordinated by an Enugu-state born head of a federal government parastatal is the crystallization of the vituperations of these discredited groups on the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo for the past one month.
“It should be noted that while Ndigbo are not against the candidacy of President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 polls, since he has the constitutional right for a second term, endorsement for any candidate including Buhari will be after wide consultations.
“However, it is important to let the public know that these characters engaging in the exercise are not qualified to do it as their mandates have since expired at the dissolution of their groups. And elections for both organs are scheduled for Friday 20th and Saturday 21st April 2018 in Enugu where new leadership will emerge.
“For the Igbo persons in the present administration who have been financing and orchestrating the macabre dance of the disgraced youth and women leaders for the past two months, their desperation for relevance and display of grip of the Igbo socio-political structure should be guided, else they exhaust the little credence they have left in Igbo land.”