By Correspondent in Minna
Eze Pampas Ngozi Wahiwe.
The Chairman, Eze Ndigbo in the 19 Northern States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Eze Pampas Ngozi Wahiwe, has described the report purportedly credited to him declaring some Igbos as ‘Northern Igbos’ as mere mischief aimed to achieve evil agenda.
Eze Wahiwe’s clearing the air is coming against the backdrop of a trending online publication credited to him entitled “A new tribe has emerged, “We are now Northern Igbos-Igbos in Northern Nigeria”, which is generating negative comments and ill feelings in some quarters.
The Igbo Community leader in Niger state, in an interview with journalists in Minna denied ever granting interview to any online medium on the subject matter and wondered why any man or woman in his or her right sense would concoct such thing to cause bad blood and undue tension.
Wahiwe, who said he would have ignored the report if not for the purpose of setting record straight, argued that his picture/clip used by the mischief makers was in 2017 when a group from northern Nigeria gave Igbos quit notice and he stood against that with reasons.
He said:””Part of the argument then was that, every citizen of this country has the right to live in any part of Nigeria, associate and do his or her business. No single tribe should lay claims to what collectively belonged to all and they should peacefully co-exist.
“My argument then was that, some of us have spent all our productive years in the north; have children, married wives, the northerners, including the Hausas, married our daughters and we also married theirs. So, with this kind mixture, they should start killing themselves?
“Recently, precisely on 12th June 2021, we had an enlarged meeting by Igbo leaders outside eastern region in Abuja with serving Ministers of Igbo extraction in attendance, deliberated on a number of issues and took position including condemning the activities of secessionists with a communique at the end.
“Top part of deliberations is the rightful demand for a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction in 2023, without bias to any political party. “At no time did I grant interview to anybody, in fact all the journalists were gone as at the time we finished,except one and we handed over the communique to him.”
While calling on the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and media practitioners to be mindful of the antics of some online publishers making nonsense of journalism profession, Eze Wahiwe said he was embarrassed when someone he respects so much drew his attention to the publication and its implications.
“At the meeting, attended by the President General, Igbo Delegates Assembly (IDA), Chief Chi Nwogu, himself as Chairman Eze Ndigbo in the 19 Northern States and the FCT, Abuja and the Eze Igbo Kano who doubles as the President General of Eze Ndigbo in Diaspora”, Wahiwe said nothing about a new Igbo race or tribe emerging from the north was discussed.
Wahiwe questioned the rationale behind the release of the distorted report,”now that the country is passing through critical moment in history”, insists that the online publication never represented his views but that of the author to cause bad blood amongst Nigeria’s various ethnic nationalities and urged that the repor should be discarded.
