THE Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization has described as a disgrace to the Igbo nation, the decision of some Igbo people to beg the president -elect, General Muhammadu Buhari for appointments in his government that will take off on May 29, 2015.
President of Ohaneze in Anambra State, Chief Chris Eluomunoh, who is also the chairman of Ohaneze State Presidents’ Forum for the seven Igbo-speaking states, said at a news conference in Awka that issues of federal appointments were constitutional obligations which every president of Nigeria, irrespective of the voting pattern of a people in an election, must obey.
He condemned in its entirety, the move by certain people who claimed to be representing the Igbo to be begging the president-elect for appointments of Ndigbo in his government. According to him, Igbo nation is an integral part of Nigeria and must get their due share in Nigeria, adding that appointing Igbo people into offices should not in any way be regarded as doing them any favour.
Eluomunoh said there was nothing unusual for a group to be in opposition, telling Igbo people not to see the defeat of Jonathan as the end of their progress in the politics of Nigeria. He said: “It is a disgrace for any Igbo to be begging General Buhari for appointment, after all Buhari and others in the South West and members of his party had been in opposition for the past 16 years and they never begged Jonathan for appointment.
“As far as the politics of Nigeria is concerned, General Buhari and the incoming APC government must involve the South East in the zonal arrangement. “With Buhari as the president and the South West as the vice president, the next most important appointment, which is the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, must come from the South East. We don’t have to beg for it and so those who went to Buhari to beg for appointment on behalf of Igbo did not represent Igbo.”
