Prominent Igbo socio-cultural organization Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide has endorsed the administration of President Bola Tinubu and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Through the National Assembly, the group pushed for election changes and called on individuals behind the scheme to give up on their plans to participate in planned rallies against INEC.
Additionally, Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential contender in 2023, received advice from the Igbo group to accept the outcome of the election and move on.
The South Unity Youth Coalition announced plans to stage a sizable protest on June 12, Democracy Day, to demand the removal of Professor Mahmoud Yakubu from his role as INEC Chairman, according to Daily Post.
The group claims that the integrity of Nigeria’s electoral process has been seriously compromised by Professor Yakubu’s leadership.
In response to the presidential election in South Africa on Saturday, Obi restated his assertion that fraud and other major irregularities plagued the previous general election in Nigeria.
Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, the national president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide, expressed regret over the continued attention that many Nigerian politicians are paying to the general elections of 2023 and urged them to work with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration to advance the country.
Nnabuike expressed concern that, “instead, what we have continued to see is that politicians and some of their paid agents have continued to fan embers of discord in the country owing to the outcome of the elections.
“We have said for the umpteenth time that there is no perfect election anywhere in the world.
“Our appeal to our brother, His Excellency Mr Peter Obi is to accept not just the outcome of the election, but the verdict of the apex court in the land, the Supreme Court.
“In the case of the 2023 election, without sounding biased, it is a wrong conclusion for anyone to say that the INEC performed woefully.
“This cannot be so, when the court upheld the majority of the election and in some of the cases where elections were annulled, it had to do with candidates’ qualifications and some other issues that could not be blamed on the INEC.”
Nnabuike urged those plotting protests to reconsider, emphasizing that Igbo youths would not be manipulated into supporting such a self-serving agenda intended to inflame political tensions.
“Igbo youths are not going to be lured into such a selfish agenda aimed at heating up the polity.
“Rather, we remain firmly behind President Bola Tinubu’s government and INEC. We welcome further reforms to the electoral process through the National Assembly.
“Any form of protest, we are not going to be a party to it, and those behind the plot should jettison it,” he stressed.
