Okere tackles Ohanaeze President over comment on Igbo ancestry, says a curator is not a historian

Success Damian:

Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Lagos State and Vice Presidential Candidate of Alliance National Party (ANP) in the just concluded 2019 General Election, Evelyn Okere, has come out to dissociate the Igbos from comments credited to Chief Solomon Ogbonna.

She said as somebody who claimed to be a Curator, Ogbonna is not in the position to speak on the origin of Ndigbo as he is not a Historian or Archaeologist. She therefore called on the president of Ohanaeze Lagos Chapter to resign.

Speaking at a press conference called by concerned Igbo leaders of thought in Lagos on Wednesday, to address issues raised in an article in The Sun Newspaper of May 6, in which Chief Ogbonna, gave his unwavering support to the claim by the Royal Father of Yorubaland, Ooni of Ife, that the Igbos are from Ile-Ife and not from Israel.

While stressing the fact that there is crack in Ohanaeze Lagos leadership, Okere disclosed that Chief Ogbonna has carried himself in a very irresponsible manner in so many ways. “But the one that has come to the forefront is the embarrassment by concurring with a monarch that the Igbos originated from Ile-Ife based on word syllables and similarities.”

Okere stated that for the fact that everybody eats yam or plantain does not give him the audacity to say that these people are from the same place or same culture.

“Igbos are migrants in nature. To go back to history, history tells it all. Even during slave trade, Igbos have been traders; they trade in palm oil, slaves, kolanuts, they trade in so many things, and as early as 15^th century, the Igbos in the hinterland had already started slave trading, they conquer a village, they sell slaves, when people were coming through the waters, from Calabar axis, Port-Harcourt, so people were coming and, again we are here trading with the people.

“So certified historians and archaeologists have been able to prove their researches over time that this is where they believe Igbos came from. From the religious angle also, and in every school of thought there are different diversions, everybody with their own research, but whatever research it is you share with the world, there is a proper procedure for it. You don’t wake up because you buy artifacts from the market or you deceive people and go to shrines and collect masks, that gives you the authority to claim that because you have 3000 artifacts you bought from the market, or you went to Ile-Ife and bought one, that gives you the power or leverage to say that Igbos are from wherever, there are procedures,” Okere analyzed.

She challenged Solomon present his certificates to the people. “I am challenging the President if he wants the Igbos to believe what he is saying; he must give us certificate, primary, secondary, university, PhD, Masters, where he has tendered papers. He says he lives outside Nigeria, he is a Curator, my brother, if you go and check the definition of a Curator, it means someone who looks after Art works, Paintings, Status or sculptural pieces, I look after it every day and open it for people to see, I am a Curator.

“If you are not a certified Historian or Archaeologist, whose job it is to research, go to a site, where he has heard about certain things happening, culture, he excavates the land, finds artifacts to prove the culture of that race or people of whatever he is researching on and tells the world and share paper, and give speeches about his project, recorded, give empirical summations and conclusions, so that different school of thought can share from the idea. We are talking about intellectuals, who have studied overtime and this takes years to build, that is why you credit university graduates, you credit master degree holders, you credit PhDs, and you credit professors because they stay years to be able to prove whatever they want to prove to you.”

Okere stated that it is an insult to our people, adding “I want to apologise because no matter how you see it I am in the Exco, so I want to officially apologise to our people, that in the face of all these we should all take heart and we should be calm, it is in order to make things better. You heard from everybody here, I think he should tender his resignation for this huge embarrassment and give unreserved apology to Igbo people because this is going round the whole world right now.

“I am giving him a challenge, in two weeks to produce his certificate to prove what he is saying. Having 3000 artifact does not give people the right to change the course of history; you change the course of history with certification, proving that you have that authority, that mantle to change history,’ Okere asserted.

Other Igbo leaders of thought who were present at the press conference were High Chief John Uche, First President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Lagos; Comrade Umezurike Austine Umezurike, a political Engineer; Pastor Okey Anoruo, Babaloja of Tejuosho Market and President of Imo State Towns Development Association Lagos (ISTDAL) and Hon. Kalu Uguru, Ex-Officio Ohanaeze Abia State.

Group condemns endorsement of Sanwo-Olu by Lagos Ohanaeze President

Success Damian:

A group of Igbo leaders of thought have condemned the unilateral endorsement of the Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate in the 2019 election, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, by the President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Lagos Chapter, Chief Solomon Ogbonna against the standpoint of Ohanaeze worldwide.

Ben Akah, a member of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Chieftain in Lagos as well as a member of PDP Campaign organization made the disclosure during a press conference in Lagos on Tuesday. The group described the action of Ogbonna as a Scam.

At the press briefing which had in attendance Dr. Vincent Anyigor, National Coordinator of Unit2Unit; Dr. Jonathan Nnaji and Chief Arthur Nwachukwu, Akah expressed disgust at the attitude of Ogbonna in the following words “In the past few days, we have a reneged state chairman in the name of Chief Solomon Ogbonna who unfortunately has shown himself to be a scammer, because all he has been doing is running around APC and Sanwo-Olu to scam money and put in his pocket. That informed the first outing he had with Sanwo at the national stadium where he conferred a chieftaincy title on him. And that also informed the recent meeting where he also said that Ndigbo in Lagos State has endorsed Sanwo-Olu,” Akah said.

Akah gave a background to his claim saying that Ogbonna called a stakeholders meeting of Ndigbo at Muson Centre in Lagos without prior information of using the platform to endorse the APC candidate.

He gave vivid explanation what he called a scam by Chief Ogbonna “I give you a background to the story. When he was calling that meeting, he got everybody to attend on his authority as being the president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Lagos, but he used a scam message in which he said he was calling a Town Hall Meeting of stakeholders. He never mentioned that it was a political meeting, he never mentioned that Sanwo-Olu was coming there and never mentioned any other issue but a town hall meeting of stakeholders and therefore there was not supposed to have been any visitor to that meeting.

“Unfortunately he had already had a definite agreement with Sanwo-Olu and his group of APC. Everybody came into the meeting, sat down exchanging banters, prayers were being said, and he said the people we are expecting are coming. Everybody thought that since he said Chief Nnia Nwodo was the convener of the meeting that he was the person we were waiting for, unknown to the people inside Muson Centre that he had had banners put outside after the people had gone in, a giant size poster of Sanwo-Olu and a giant size of Nnia Nwodo. and then Sanwo-Olu worked in and started addressing the people.”

Akah said it was then that Ogbonna told the people that the gathering was to endorse Sanwo-Olu. Akah state that a lot of people made noise, saying it was not what they came for. “At that point, the press had carried whatever they wanted to carry,” Akah stated.

He recalled the standpoint of Ohanaeze worldwide on issue of Restructuring, which informed the choice of the political party to be supported by Ohanaeze. In his words “The president General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, with the authority of Imeobi which is the highest policy making body of Ohanaeze came out and declared on the policy of restructuring which is at the heart of every Igbo man that we want power to devolve to the various units. He said we dislike over centralization, we also want space to be opened for people to prosper. We also want individual business enterprise to rise so that poverty can be chased away and as a people we are consistent with this aspirations.

“The Imeobi took a decision that in this particular election, the Igbo race will support the PDP, and it did not make any pretenses about it. The president general announced it to the world and he went about canvassing for it and also to defend it,” Akah narrated.

On the purpose of the press conference Akah said “What we are telling you today is that Igbo race is still definite on which political programme they support and they are proud to be different; what we are looking for is a prosperous, peaceful nation, a nation where unemployment is nearly zero, a country where everybody can afford to live well, a country where poverty is chased away, a country where every state can stand on its own and not go to Abuja for handout, a country where you can stay in your village and live your life and prosper, that is the meaning of restructuring and that is the way we understand it, and that is the first and most important thing to the Igbo race in Nigeria.

“We want a country where we will no longer be struggling to know who the country’s president at Abuja is. Because it will not matter to Mr. A or Mr. B who the President is, there will be no more struggle that the president is a Fulani man or Hausa man, and nobody will care, that is what we want,” Akah stated

He stated authoritatively that Nnia Nwodo is bewildered, and emphasized that Chief Ogbonna has gone over the board in his quest for private enrichment.

Akah said that such action will not go unpunished but could not explain what the penalty will be as Ohanaeze has a constitutional means to deal with such unexpected conduct.