\n
.Urges FG To Obey Court Judgment<\/b><\/p>\n
.Appeals To Buhari To Free IPOB Leader Before Leaving Office This Month, May<\/b><\/p>\n
Nigerian politician and entrepreneur, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, has been confirmed as the president-general of the Igbo socio-cultural organization,\u00a0Ohanaeze Ndigbo<\/a>. In his inaugural speech, Mr Iwuanyanwu pledged to secure the release of separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu who is being prosecuted for treason by the federal government.<\/p>\n Mr Iwuanyanwu was unanimously endorsed as the group\u2019s president-general during a meeting of Ohanaeze Imeobi at Enugu\u2019s Banquet Hall on Sunday.<\/p>\n Imeobi is the highest decision-making organ of the Ohanaeze, considered by many to be the top Igbo socio-cultural organization in Nigeria.<\/p>\n The 80-year-old politician was earlier this month presented to Governor Hope Uzodinma\u00a0of Imo State by a\u00a0delegation of the Imo Elders Council as the consensus candidate to replace the immediate past president-general of the Igbo group, George Obiozor, whose death was\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0in December.<\/p>\n But given that his emergence was not through an election, Ohanaeze Imeobi needed to ratify the position.<\/p>\n Reporters were not allowed inside the venue during the Ohanaeze Imeobi meeting. But a member of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chinedu Ugwa, while reaching on the development said\u00a0\u00a0Mr Iwuanyanwu was confirmed Ohanaeze Ndigbo president-general because there was no dissenting voice against his emergence at the meeting.<\/p>\n Mr Ugwa, who participated in the meeting, said Mr Iwuanyanwu was confirmed as the president-general through voice voting.<\/p>\n \u201cA new president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been elected through the procedure of engaging the governors of the seven states that make up Ohanaeze. The endorsement was done after a recommendation by Elders of Imo State because nobody was coming to ask or query his emergence. So, it is in the form of an election,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In his inaugural speech, Mr Iwuanyanwu expressed delight over his endorsement as the president-general of the Igbo group, saying that \u201cprovidence and the love of Igbos propelled\u201d him to the position.<\/p>\n \u201cI thank you all for giving me the opportunity to lead Ndigbo at this time. With our collective efforts and support, Ndigbo will rise again.<\/p>\n \u201cI, therefore have a duty to valiantly defend the Igbo course and I promise Imeobi and all Igbo people that by the grace of God, I will not fail them,\u201d Mr Iwuanyanwu said.<\/p>\n The new president-general said he had done \u201chis best to serve Igbos both in time of war and time peace\u201d and that, as a young boy, he learnt determination to serve Igbos from his father.<\/p>\n He said he never \u201cnurtured\u201d the idea of becoming president-general of Ohanaeze and that he had unsuccessfully sought to become Nigerian president three times.<\/p>\n Mr Iwuanyanwu, while reeling out the priorities of his administration, said he would make \u201ca special appeal\u201d to President Muhammadu Buhari to release Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the outlawed\u00a0Indigenous People of Biafra<\/a>\u00a0(IPOB), before he (Buhari) exits office on 29 May.<\/p>\n \u201cNnamdi Kanu is very crucial for any discussion (on security) and it is not possible to negotiate any peace while\u00a0 Nnamdi Kanu is in prison,\u201d he said, noting that the Court of Appeal, Abuja had\u00a0struck out the terrorism charges<\/a>\u00a0filed against Mr Kanu.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is also a report that his health is deteriorating. I feel it is important that he is released to have access to his medical doctors so that he does not die in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n The new Ohanaeze leader also vowed to ensure that the South-east gets an additional state, explaining that the South-east is the only region with five states in Nigeria.<\/p>\n \u201cSeveral political conferences have recommended the creation of additional state in the South-east to bring the number of states to six. So far, this has not been actualized.<\/p>\n \u201cI will make sure that during my tenure (as Ohanaeze president-general), an additional state is created for the South-east,\u201d Mr Iwuanyanwu assured.<\/p>\n The Ohanaeze president-general listed other priorities of his administration including reviving agriculture, and industries and revitalisation of the educational system in the South-east with a focus on information and communication technology.<\/p>\n Others are: Repositioning the region\u2019s health sector, evaluating the possibility of generating electricity with coal deposits in Enugu and creating the Ohanaeze investment company as well as a cultural centre.<\/p>\n In attendance during the meeting were the five governors from the South-east: Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) Charles Soludo (Anambra), Dave Umahi (Ebonyi State, represented by his Deputy, Kelechi Igwe), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia, represented by his Deputy, Ude Chukwu) and Hope Uzodinma (Imo, represented by his Deputy, Placid Njoku).<\/p>\n Others are The Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, Enugu State Governor-elect, Peter Mbah, former Governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim and a former President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Adolphus Wabara, among others.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" .Urges FG To Obey Court Judgment .Appeals To Buhari To Free IPOB Leader Before Leaving<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-frontpage"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu.jpg",700,400,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu-300x171.jpg",300,171,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu.jpg",640,366,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu.jpg",640,366,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu.jpg",700,400,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu.jpg",700,400,false],"elegant-magazine-featured":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu.jpg",700,400,false],"elegant-magazine-medium":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu.jpg",665,380,false],"elegant-magazine-medium-small":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu.jpg",300,171,false],"elegant-magazine-thumbnail-small":["https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Iwuanyanwu.jpg",50,29,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Imo Trumpeta"]},"category_info":"Frontpage<\/a>","tag_info":"Frontpage","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39931,"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39930\/revisions\/39931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imotrumpeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}