IMMEDIATE RESTRUCTURING IS PREFERABLE TO OHANAEZE NDIIGBO THAN IGBO PRESIDENT UNDER THE 1999 CONSTITUTION – Nwodo
Okenwa Nwosu
Lower Niger Congress
11th August 2020

John Nnia Nwodo, a two-time minister in Nigeria’s central government and the incumbent President-General of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo, was a guest on Arise News where he answered a lot of questions on pressing political, socioeconomic and security problems facing Nigeria, particularly the Igbo ethnic nationality. As usual, he handled his interrogators with the ease that only knowledge, experience and self-confidence can impart. Many individuals and groups claim to speak on behalf of Ndiigbo. But it is only through Chief Nwodo’s voice that a rational and balanced viewpoint about the Igbo’s place in contemporary Nigeria can be reliably and consistently sourced. Having been intimately engaged in politics Nigeriana in the past 40 years, Nnia Nwodo’s knowledge on matters of national discourse is encyclopedic.

He aptly handled the condescending attitude of a Northern ruling oligarch like Tanko Yakassai, who volunteered to lecture Ndiigbo on how to reach out to other Nigerian stakeholders as the only means to secure the presidency in the 2023 general elections cycle. Nwodo went on the limb to remind Yakassai and others that the Igbo are the most widely dispersed ethnic nationality in Nigeria. Ndiigbo take their economic activities to wherever they are domiciled. They’ve built a tomato factory in Sokoto, hotels in Abuja, a university in Ogun state and many commercial hubs of which the Alaba International Market, Lagos is one. The Igbo are being deliberately marginalized and excluded from the governance of Nigeria despite their immense contributions to national cohesion and socioeconomic development.

When asked whether the Ohanaeze Ndiigbo would prefer the so-called Igbo presidency or Restructuring, his response was curt and unmistakable. He did not only ask for Restructuring but also to have it done NOW. He narrated the history of how the General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s regime, which he had served as a minister, secretly wrote and decreed the 1999 Constitution into existence without involving the Federal Executive Council (FEC) that was supposed to be the highest governing body at the time. The 1999 Constitution, which was promulgated by the ruling military junta in camera, was never released to the public until after the incoming Obasanjo had been sworn into office as president. As a trained lawyer, Chief Nwodo remarked that the 1999 Constitution is not autochthonous and thus lacks legitimacy and approval of the Nigerian constituents.

He believes that the agitation for Biafra among Igbo youths is necessitated and engendered by well-orchestrated marginalization of Alaigbo developmentally as well as the deliberate exclusion of Ndiigbo from many aspects of national governance. He wonders why youth agitators in other parts of the country are glossed over or even often rewarded while undue negative attention is always focused on their Igbo counterparts.

Answering a question on why Ndiigbo have not given equal attention to the development of their ancestral home base as they do elsewhere around Nigeria, the Ohanaeze PG used the opportunity to disclose the establishment of the Alaigbo Stabilization Fund (ASF) which is designed to radically transform the economic fortune of Igboland in remarkable ways.

To watch Chief Nnia Nwodo’s interview and associated remarks, go to the LNC USA website homepage and scroll toward the bottom. Share widely with your social media contacts as usual.
Okenwa.


Link to LNC-USA website mentioned in the article:
https://www.lnc-usa.org/blog/immediate-restructuring-is-preferable-to-ohanaeze-ndiigbo-than-igbo-president-under-the-1999-constitution-nwodo/


SOURCE:
https://web.facebook.com/lowernigercongress

Restructuring is too late now.

What Igbos want now is total freedom.