Posted by By DENNIS MERNYI, Abuja on
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, has urged the Igbo in the country to vote only Igbo and, specifically Abia State Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, who has been endorsed for the nation's number one job by the group.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, has urged the Igbo in the country to vote only Igbo and, specifically Abia State Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, who has been endorsed for the nation's number one job by the group.
The organization also resolved that the entire Igbo race should not give its votes to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as it insisted that the presidency must rotate to the South East so that an Igbo would be sworn in as president on May 29, 2007.
President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr. Dozie Ikedife, at a news conference in Abuja Saturday said 'Ndigbo will cast their votes only for presidential candidates of Igbo origin in the person of Governor Orji Kalu, who is contesting for president under the Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA).
'Ndigbo, therefore, decided that in the 2007 national election, we will not give our votes to the PDP. The survival of the nation calls for a change of regime.
'The only candidate whom Ohanaeze Ndigbo has endorsed for the 2007 presidential elections is Governor Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia State. He is an achiever who has distinguished himself in many fields of endeavor. His strength of character and resoluteness under fire are beyond questions."
He also stated: 'It is high time Ndigbo be voted as president of the Federal Republic and not relegated to second class citizen. We however call on all Igbo to be calm and law abiding."
According to Dr Ikedife, who regretted that Ndigbo have been marginalised since independence in terms of leadership structure, explained that it did not endorse Kalu to deal with only Igbo problems but to also set an agenda for the restoration of hope in the nation.
He said the organization has noted that in the past eight years of democracy in the country, there has been movement from constitutional democracy to imperial presidency where the party in power is no longer party for the people but an authoritarian and over-centralised one- man show.
'These developments led to ignominious conspiracy of the third term. In Igbo land, the situation has been very intolerable. It was in Igbo land that an elected governor was kidnapped by a contingent of Police led by an AIG, government property burnt and the arsonists conferred with impunity," he lamented.
He also decried the state of decay and abandonment of federal projects in Igbo land and a concerted programme of closing down thriving industries, such as Savannah Bank, Slok Airlines, Sosoliso Airline, Ibeto Cement factory and the rest by the present regime.