The new President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof. George Obiozor, has said the issue concerning Biafra is beyond the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
Obiozor also warned the people of the South-East and some organisations to restrain forthwith actions or utterances that put Ndigbo in imminent danger or harm’s way.
Obiozor, who spoke on Wednesday during a World Press Conference at Ohanaeze National Secretariat Enugu, said the Igbo nation was not at war with Nigeria and had nothing pending before any authority that demanded a separate entity for Ndigbo.
At the conference tagged, ‘Ohanaeze Ndigbo: The dawn of a new era,’ the new president-general of the Igbo apex socio-cultural organisation, appealed to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, to toe the part of honour, listen to the voice of wisdom and drop his agitation for a separate state.
He said, “The Igbo nation is not at war with Nigeria and has nothing pending before any authority that demands a separate existence from Nigeria.
“Nnamdi Kanu is one of us and he must listen to some of us for several reasons. The fact and reality are that the issues of Biafra are above and beyond his capacity to decide.
“He must listen because he is one of us and we are all in this dilemma together. And our mutual and collective responsibilities are sacred and must be respected.”
While dispelling insinuations that he will champion anti-Igbo interest, he reminded Ndigbo that what the late Biafran warlord, Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, meant by the bones shall rise didn’t mean conflict, violence and war.
‘Memo I wrote with Okadigbo led to Ojukwu’s pardon’
Meanwhile, Obiozor said a memo he wrote with late President of the Senate, Dr Chuba Okadigbo, led to the granting of presidential pardon and amnesty to late Ojukwu by former President Shehu Shagari in 1983.
Obiozor disclosed this in Enugu when he paid a courtesy visit to former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.
Accompanied by his Secretary-General and former Nigerian Ambassador to South Africa, Okey Emuche; and other executive members, Obiozor said, “I want to tell you something about my own feeling about the Igbos. We are a people of destiny, the similarity between Igbo spirit and that of the Jews is amazing to me; as an academician I wrote about it, read about it and as an Ambassador in Israel, I saw it happen. The greatest revenge against injustice is success.”
The President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Ndigbo who later visited his immediate predecessor, Chief John Nnia Nwodo said he had been working for Ndigbo, and did the negotiation to bring Ojukwu back to Nigeria from Ivory Coast.
