Atiku Endorsement: Ohanaeze Sacks Secretary-General For False Statement

The controversy trailing the endorsement of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, by the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has claimed it's first casualty as the organisation on Thursday night suspended its Secretary General, Uche Okwukwu.

The suspension was contained in a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Uche Achi-Okpaga, and made available to journalists at the end of its emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Enugu on Thursday.

The statement said that Okwukwu was suspended both as Secretary General and member of all organs of Ohanaeze Ndigbo.

The body accused the suspended scribe of engaging in false representations of decisions of meetings of the NEC and the Imeobi of Ohanaeze at different for a in the last three days.

“These actions having taken place in the public domain and reported copiously in the mass media, NEC in an overwhelming majority decision after confronting Okwukwu has resolved as follows.

“That  Okwukwu is from this day,January 31,  2019, suspended from his office as Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and membership of all organs of Ohanaeze Ndigbo,” the release said.

The Ohanaeze NEC gave Okwukwu seven days to publicly retract the alleged misrepresentations and publish same in the mass media, failure of which the matter would be referred to a Disciplinary Committee for further inquiries and appropriate action and subsequent referral to the Imeobi for final decision.

“In the prevailing circumstance, every member of Ohanaeze, Branches and Affiliate Bodies are advised, in the mean-time, to take note and desist from dealing with Okwukwu as the Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo," the group stated.

It would be recalled that following the endorsement of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar and his running mate, Mr. Peter Obi by the Imeobi Ohanaeze on 24th February, 2019, Okwukwu had two days later issued press statements contradicting Ohanaeze.