The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has criticised Nigeria’s President-elect, Bola Tinubu, for not including Igbo people in his transition committee.
Mr Tinubu recently nominated 14 people to the committee to assist him in achieving a smooth transition from President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to his own on 29 May.
In the list of nominees seen by PREMIUM TIMES, no Igbo person was on the committee.
Reacting, the Vice-President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Damian Okeke-Ogene, accused the president-elect of being a “tribalist”, according to a report by Vanguard newspaper.
“Igbophobia is in his (Tinubu) veins, and by not including Igbo people in the handover committee, he is only trying to reopen old wounds. He inherited the hatred (Muhammadu) Buhari has against Igbo, especially when the President-elect has said he will continue from where the incumbent president stopped,” Mr Okeke-Ogene was quoted as saying.
“He said he will continue with Buhari’s policies, and our question is, what is he continuing? Is it to continue marginalising a particular ethnic group?” he stated.
‘We’ve not yet accepted Tinubu as president-elect.’
Mr Okeke-Ogene also said the apex Igbo group has not accepted the emergence of Mr Tinubu as the country’s president-elect. Ohanaeze has not even taken his election, and whatever he does is personal. We know that those who want to divide Nigeria will surely fail,” he said.
“Ohanaeze is not in a hurry to recognise Tinubu as the president-elect because any house built on a faulty foundation is bound to collapse. We believe that the process of the 2023 presidential election is still on,” the Ohanaeze vice-president added.
Mr Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was declared the winner of the 25 February presidential election after polling 8,794,726 votes. Two other leading candidates in the election – Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi – came second and third respectively. Obi and Atiku are currently challenging Mr Tinubu’s victory at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, Abuja. Ohanaeze Ndigbo said its decision to accept Mr Tinubu as president-elect will be taken after the court processes.
“The voting has been done, and the court has taken over, and until the outcome of the court process is known, we cannot take a stand on the 2023 election,” Mr Okeke-Ogene stated.
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