A prominent member of the Caretaker Committee of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr. Aja Nwachukwu, on Wednesday disassociated the group from the comments credited to the Chairman of the Committee, Chief Ralph Obioha, that it had endorsed the All Progressives Congress as the party for the Igbo.
Nwachukwu, who is a former Minister of Education, told journalists in Abakaliki that the views expressed by the chairman were personal and did not represent the collective interest of Igbo people in Nigeria and beyond.
“What Ralph Obioha said does not represent the collective interest of Ndigbo. In our meeting, which took place at Nike Street in Enugu, we did not say we were supporting APC or the Peoples Democratic Party.
"What we discussed in our meeting in Enugu was that we were not going to be partisan, and we commended our brothers and sisters for voting according to their conscience in the last presidential elections," he said.
According to him, it was premature for Ohanaeze Ndigbo to take sides with any political party in the country, saying that any resolution reached by the committee must be ratified by the congress before it would become a policy statement of the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation.
He added, “At the meeting, we also commended the caretaker committee chairman for sending a congratulatory message to the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) and President Goodluck Jonathan for his show of maturity and magnanimity at polls. We subsequently called on Ndigbo to re-strategise and get a very strong platform to negotiate the interest of Igbo at all levels of governance.
“Anybody talking about party A or B is on his own; that was not a congress resolution. We agreed that we were not going to be partisan as we are satisfied with the elections in Ebonyi State."
Nwachukwu also added that the organisation's duty was to play a fatherly role on behalf of Ndigbo and therefore warned, that no one should draw the organisation into controversy.
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