ATTEMPTS to broker a peace deal and end the factional fighting currently plaguing the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation Ohaneze Ndigbo failed yesterday when a meeting called by Imo State governor Rochas Okorocha failed to end the feud.
Over recent months, Ohaneze Ndigbo has been wracked by infighting as a succession dispute led to the sacking of its executive committee and the appointment of a caretaker committee led by Chief Ralph Obioha. However, several Ohaneze big whigs have refused to accept the arrangement and a faction has opted not to recognise Chief Ralph Obioha's caretaker committee.
In an attempt to end the feud, Governor Okorocha called a peace meeting in Enugu yesterday but the talks failed to produce a result. Some stakeholders accused the former national chairman of Ohanaeze, Chief Gary Enwo Igaiwey, of frustrating efforts to ensure unity in the association and asked the governors of southeast states to appoint members that would support the Chief Ralph Obioha to resolve the raging dispute.
Several leading members of Ohanaeze Ndigbo including Senator Offia Nwali, Chief Ralph Obioha, Chief Kate Onwe, Chief Oyibo Chukwu, Chief Ralph Okafor and Chief Leon Mezue, said that the Igariwey group had consistently obstructed and impeded the work of the 17- member constitution review/electoral committee established and headed by Chief Ralph Obioha. His committee was established to review and harmonise the Ohanaeze Ndigbo constitution, by insisting on no-go areas which included issue of tenure of office of executive committees and the mandate to the committee to conduct elections into the Ohanaeze executive committees.
They added: “At the meeting of the Ohanaeze Caretaker Committee, held on Friday, May 6, 2016 in Enugu, this body of eminent Igbo leaders considered the peace efforts to resolve the intractable leadership problems in Ohanaeze, engendered by the tenure extension imbroglio and the question of leadership succession within Ohanaeze Ndigbo, and the way forward. The meeting also ex-rayed the negotiated settlement reached by the Ohanaeze caretaker committee, led by Chief Ralph Obioha and the Ohanaeze group, led by Chief Gary Enwo Igariwey, by the initiative of His Excellency, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, governor of Imo State.
“The meeting thereafter resolved that the lgariwey group should, in the interest of genuine peace in Ohanaeze and Igbo strategic and main stream interests, return to all the agreed terms of the peace settlement and commit itself to their full implementations. Also, the governors of the southeast should, as a matter of urgency, contribute their own members to the constitution review/electoral committee which is under the headship of Chief Ralph Obioha and inaugurate it to discharge its mandate."
In addition, they added that in view of the urgent necessity and compelling need for Chief Obioha, to travel overseas, the meeting appointed Senator Offia Nwali to act in his stead and deputise for him pending his return to the country. In addition, they said the meeting finally urges a principled implementation of all the terms of the peace agreement.
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