First Republic Aviation Minister, Chief Mbazulike Amechi has responded to a jibe from former Governor of Old Anambra State, Senator Jim Nwobodo.
Nwobodo, 80, and Amechi, 91, have been at each other’s throats following the later’s description of South-East governors as weak and other issues related to the region.
Amechi had claimed that security agents found it easy to kill Igbo youths without consequences because of the governors’ weakness, a position Nwobodo disagreed with.
The nonagenarian also accused Nwobodo of scuttling the South-East’s efforts to produce the president in 1999 by scuttling Dr Alex Ekwueme’s chances.
A furious Nwobodo promptly hit back at Amechi, describing him as a nonagenarian that was talking like a 30-year-old.
However, the elder statesman has doubled down on his assessment of Nwobodo’s contributions to the political journey of the Igbo nation.
He told Vanguard, “I do not think I personally take Nwobodo seriously in Nigerian politics because most of the trouble we have in Nigeria between the North and the Igbo have a touch of Jim Nwobodo.
“I wish you can hear me well because I really want to talk to you on that. When I make a heavy statement like that, I want to explain it.
“I said the trouble between the North and the Igbo has its origin and Nwobodo played a very big role in them in 1978/79. I negotiated the formation of alliance between the National Party of Nigeria, NPN and Nigerian Peoples Party, NPP.
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“Now, after the election, Nwobodo won on the platform of NPP and in Imo State, Chief Sam Mbakwe won and the man in Jos, Solomon Lar, won in Plateau State. Zik used his position with the North to forge an alliance between the NPP and the NPN in the formation of the Federal Government of 1979.
“Again, Nwobodo won the second term election. Mbakwe and Solomon Lar also won in 1982/83. Jim Nwobodo again went and brought alliance between Zik and Awolowo and I told Zik that there was no way it would work, that he should not break the alliance he had with the NPN.
“But they formed their progressives and it was the same Nwobodo that engineered that and it failed.
“While Nwobodo was enjoying his governorship in his second term, he lost to Christian Omoh who became governor of Old Anambra State. Throughout the time Nwobodo was a member of NPP, he was never consistent.
“In 1999 or thereabout, during the Olusegun Obasanjo’s era, they went to Jos Convention. It was the same Nwobodo who threw some confusion into Ekwueme’s camp.
“A great percentage of Northerners agreed they have run their turn, that it was time for the people of the Southeast. Then, Nwobodo got up there in Jos and said all sorts of nonsense in Hausa and that led to the loss of Dr Alex Ekwueme to Obasanjo.
“Under former President Goodluck Jonathan, he joined the All Progressives Congress, APC. He is an opportunist. He wants wherever he will gain personally. So, when he talks on matters of life in politics, I don’t take him seriously.”