Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex socio-cultural organization of the Igbo tribe in the country says no group can stop a president of Igbo extraction in the coming general election if endorsed by God.
The group stated this while distancing itself from Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC) which has embarked on a mission to lobby some individuals considered influential nationwide for one of its own to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.
Headed by one Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, the group reportedly appointed Yakubu Gowon, a former military dictator to spearhead the mission.
But in a statement on Wednesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Uche Achi-Okpaga, said Mr Isiguzoro and his group were on their own.
“The purported actions exist only in the imagination of the miscreants and enemies of the Igbo nation who are the purveyors of the unfortunate concoctions,” the Ohanaeze spokesman said.
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo reiterates that there is no organisation as Ohanaeze Youth Council recognized by Ndigbo and that the misguided so-called leader of the group, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, is a warped, egocentric and power-hungry mind who obviously is living in an incontrovertible state of mental delusion.
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo regrets the unpatriotic acts of some Igbo politicians sponsoring these equally unpatriotic irredentists shamelessly flying the kite for them towards 2023.
“It states that if it is the wish of God that a president of Igbo stock shall emerge in 2023, it will not be midwifed by an inconsequential group whose only mission and preoccupation is personal aggrandizement and not the collective interest and aspiration of Ndigbo,” Mr Achi-Okpaga added.