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.
