2023: Igbo Elders Divided After Ezeife Visits Kashim Shettima

Reports have indicated that weeks after a visit from the former governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, to the All Progressives Congress, APC, vice-presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, the Igbo Elders Consultative Forum, IECF, which he chairs is seriously divided.

An official statement from the IECF had earlier claimed that it was a courtesy visit.

However, sources have informed Punch that the group has been thrown into controversies after members who support the Igbo presidency of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, remained divided.

The division was due to the cancellation of two press conferences earlier scheduled for 1 pm on Tuesday, June 14 and Friday, June 24 2022 at Ezeife’s residence in Asokoro at the last minute, with no explanation given.

Due to the incident, the group has maintained a deafening silence which has led to speculations that politicians might have infiltrated them.

A member of the IECF confirmed the situation but said that he was not certain if the APC was responsible for the division.

He said: “I’m not sure I know what is going on among Igbo Elders. The only thing is that after those two aborted press conferences and even meetings, we decided to concentrate elsewhere and watch. There are people who came to hijack the place for the purpose of making money.

We don’t know whether they’re being sponsored by the APC. We think he (Ezeife) was told that it wasn’t good. At that time, Igbo Elders were very vocal and they tried to divide us. We didn’t allow that to bother us because we know where we were going and doing underground work.

“But I think we have come back to our senses, we have come back from our madness. Those people actually failed, they collapsed. The APC wanted to neutralise us, but that one is now over.”

When the publication contacted the spokesperson of Peter Obi Support Network, Onwuasoanya Jones, to ask if the division among Igbo elders was not a threat to Obi’s ambition, he stated that Obi’s ambition is a national agenda and Ezeife can visit whomever he chooses to.

He said, “Obi’s presidential project is not an Igbo agenda. His is a Nigerian project and we accede to the rights of every Nigerian to decide whom to support and whom to vote for. We believe that if competence, character and credibility are the deciding factors, Obi towers well above every other candidate in this race

“Ezeife is an elder statesman and former governor. We cannot decide for him whom to visit or not. It is absolutely within his right to visit Shettima or any other person for that matter.”