Anambra Ohaneze chairman condemns Igbo hypocrites begging Buhari for positions

ANAMBRA State's chapter of Igbo pan-cultural group Ohaneze Ndigbo has condemned the ongoing trend of leaders from across the southeast going to meet president-elect General Muhammadu Buhari pledging their allegiance in the quest for political appointments.

 

During the March 28 presidential elections, Nigeria's Igbo-speaking southeast geo-political zone voted massively for President Goodluck Jonathan and his People's Democratic Party (PDP). However, following the victory of General Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC), Igbo leaders have mounted a charm offensive to ensure they are not abandoned or neglected by the incoming government.

 

Several delegations of Igbo leaders have been to see General Buhari and pledged their support, asking him to ignore the fact that they voted for President Jonathan. Condemning the sycophancy, Chief Chris Eluomunoh, the president of the Anambra State chapter of Ohaneze Ndigbo, condemned the moves as selfish.

 

Chief Eluomunoh, who is also the chairman of Ohaneze State Presidents’ Forum for the seven Igbo-speaking states of Nigeria, said that issues of federal appointments were constitutional obligations which every president, irrespective of the voting pattern of a people in an election, must obey. He condemned in its entirety, the move by certain people who claimed to be representing Ndigbo to be begging the president-elect for appointments in his government.

 

According to Chief Eluomunoh, the Igbo nation is an integral part of Nigeria and must get its due share of appointments, adding that appointing Igbo people into offices should not in any way be regarded as doing them any favour. He said there was nothing unusual for a group to be in opposition, telling Ndigbo not to see the defeat of President Jonathan as the end of their progress in the politics of Nigeria.

 

Chief Eluomunoh said: “It is a disgrace for any Igbo to be begging General Buhari for appointment, after all Buhari and others in the southwest and members of his party have been in opposition for the past 16 years and they never begged Jonathan for appointments. As far as the politics of Nigeria is concerned, General Buhari and the incoming APC government must involve the southeast in the zonal arrangement.

 

“With Buhari as the president and the southwest as the vice president, the next most important appointment, which is the secretary to the government of the federation, must come from the southeast. We don’t have to beg for it and so those who went to Buhari to beg for appointment on behalf of Igbo did not represent Ndigbo.”