The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation in the country is the Ohanaeze Ndigbo. However, for some years now, the organization has been bedeviled by leadership crisis, with multiple people claiming to represent and speak on behalf of the body. Prior to 2025, two factions of Ohanaeze had existed with their respective national officers, who in most instances held conflicting views on issues concerning the Ndigbo.
But presently, the leadership crisis seems to have deepened following the emergence of three separate national executives, all elected at different fora and with the president-general of the three national executives being indigenes of Rivers State, and of the Ikwerre stock. They are Uche Okwukwu, who was elected in Port-Harcourt, John Mbata, elected in Enugu and Jackson Omenazu, also in Port-Harcourt.
The question now is which of the three president-general is the authentic leader of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo? The state governors are backing the Mbata-led faction including President Bola Tinubu, who has congratulated Mbata on his victory, while prominent groups in the South East like the proscribed MASSOB and the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, (IPOB) have thrown their weight behind the other factions led by Okwukwu and Omenazu.
Indications that the contest to choose who succeeds Ozichukwu Chukwu, as president general was going to be feisty, emerged when former Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro was forced to abandon his ambition to lead the Ohanaeze on account of his confusing dual indigene status of him being from Rivers and Imo States.
Addressing a press conference, Okiro said: “I have been made aware of the Enugu State High Court’s interim order, which regrettably restrains me from contesting the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide presidency general election tomorrow. The court order, based on alleged non-indigene status, contradicts verifiable facts. It is unfortunate that the court did not invite me or heard from me before giving that obnoxious order which I got from the media.
“The facts are that I hail from Egbema in Rivers State as shown by my National Population Commission attestation of birth. My traditional ruler, the Nzeobi of Egbema, has also confirmed my indigene status of Rivers State.”
Another red flag as to which way the Ohanaeze leadership tussle will go emerged when the President-General of Ogbakor Ikwerre, King Godspower Onuekwa, addressing journalists in Port Harcourt, opposed moves by Ohanaeze to drag the Ikwerre into the Igbo apex socio-cultural group. He declared that socially, culturally and even by custom, the Ikwerre people were neither Igbo nor Biafra, but rather a distinct and unique ethnic group, spread into four local government areas of Port Harcourt, Ikwerre, Emohua and Obio-Akpor in Rivers state.
Onuekwa, who is a lawyer asserted that the Ikwerre have never been a sub-set or a sub -group of any other tribe in Nigeria, including the Igbo and advised Ikwerre sons against being lured to eat the carrot. He warned that any Ikwerre person who accepts or contests the position of the president-general of Ohanaeze would eventually become an enemy of the Ikwerre people.
Meanwhile, all the three president-general are laying claim to be the authentic leader of Ohanaeze. Okwukwu, who is supported by IPOB, asserted that the Enugu convention where, Sen. Mbata was declared winner, was illegal and not in tandem with past traditions which encouraged elections to be held in the state where the president-general is zoned.
He argued further that in 2017, the election was held in Enugu where the then president-general came from, just as was the case in 2021, when the election was held in Imo State which also produced the Ohanaeze helmsman, the late Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu. He wondered why when it came to the turn of Rivers State, the case would be different.
His position was further bolstered by IPOB, while reacting to the emergence of Sen. Mbata, when the organisation alluded to what it described as the imposition of a leadership on Ndigbo. IPOB while congratulating Okwukwu on his well -deserved victory, and warned the South East governors not to subvert the clear choice of the people.
The IPoB in its statement said: “We also told Ndigbo that the time has gone when IPoB allowed politicians to manipulate the outcomes of Ohanaeze Ndigbo election. We just told them that this time Igbo governors and politicians must allow Ohanaeze Ndigbo to operate as a respected socio-cultural organisation, not as the errand boy and political wing of the South-East Governors Forum. IPoB, led by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu hails the election of Uche Okwukwu as president-general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide.
“We equally call on the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, governors and Ohaneze Imeobi (inner cabinet) not to subvert the clear choice of the people or subject him to usual selfish political interests. If the reports making the rounds are confirmed that these governors have openly rejected the legitimate and popular choice of the people in the person of Uche Okwukwu, then the chaos their masters have for long been seeking to infuse into the socio-cultural and political framework of Igboland would have materialised.
“These governors have no regard nor respect for our ancient value systems that recognise the supremacy of the opinion of the majority of the people in all affairs of the state. To this effect, the emergence of Uche Okwukwu or any other person validly elected by the people must be defended to the last. The governors of the South-East are only five in number, whereas the great Igbo race is nearly 90 million people all over the world. Five individuals cannot be allowed to destroy our collective heritage.’’
For Mbata, apart from Tinubu, Gov. Siminialayi Fubara, governors of the South East, and former senators, some groups have also congratulated the ex-Senate Committee chairman on appropriations on his electoral victory. One of such groups is the Cultural Credibility Development Initiative (CCDI).
A statement by Ide Uwazurike, president and Steve Nwabuko, secretary, respectively, on behalf of the organization, averred that Mbata’s election brings to completion the expected round of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide rotational transfer of leadership responsibility to the seven states that holds majority of Igbo ethnic stock comprising of Abia, Anambra, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo and Rivers States.
“The outcome of this Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide general elections has solidified Igbo oneness of purpose, unity, equality, shared values and prosperity. This election has vacated that sense of distrust, disunity and despondency that trailed Igbo resurgence since after the civil war,” the group said in the statement.
However, it’s been all cherry news for the Ikwerre politician, as another group on the heels of his emergence, issued him a seven-day ultimatum to vacate his position as Ohanaeze president-general. The Rivers State Restoration Movement (RRM), which issued the deadline through Johnson Georgewill and Sarina Akpata, described the election of Mbata as the new president-general of Ohanaeze as not only disturbing but disgraceful. It threatened that its members will stage protests in Rivers State, Abuja and at all United Nations facilities in the country, to oppose Mbata’s election.
Sounding more like fronting for the FCT Minister, Nyeson Wike. The group accused Gov. Fubara of perpetrating injustice against the Rivers people through Mbata’s election as Ohanaeze’s president- general. It wondered what wrong the people of the state have done to deserve this humiliation from current administration in the state.
“Was it a crime that in the interest of equity, fairness, and justice, former Governor Nyesom Wike and leader of Rivers State politics, on the premise of the political bond and love that spans over 50 years between the Ijaw and Ikwerre, chose Fubara as governor to represent the riverine interest? ” the group asked.
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For Omenazu, the third leg of the Ikwerre triumvirate contending the highest office in Ohanaeze, he declared that his emergence was in accordance with the 2004 Ohanaeze Constitution and that he would resist attempts by politicians to hijack the Igbo body. He added: “This is a historical event as all injustices meted against the indigenous Igbo of Rivers State have been reversed. We have recovered our Igbo national identity, as a bona fide indigene of Igbo of Rivers State has emerged as the newly elected president- general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, since the end of the Biafra war 55 years ago.
“Igbos in Rivers State are full -blooded Igbo; this is the end of identity crisis and the politics of convenience regarding our Igbo identity. Today marks a pivotal moment in the history of our great organization and the Igbo people as a whole. It is a day of profound significance, not just for myself as your newly elected president general, but also for the countless voices that have long been subdued and marginalized.
Meanwhile, the Ijaw National Congress (INC), the socio-cultural organization of the Ijaw nation, has voiced their opposition to the emergence of the three Ikwerre sons as president-general of Ohanaeze. Publicly Secretary of the INC, Chief Ezonebi Oyakemeagbegha in a statement entitled: “Don’t incite ethnic crises in Rivers,” denounced subtle attempts to make Rivers the sixth Igbo state. He said the fact that an Ikwerre indigene emerged the president-general of a faction of Ohaneze Worldwide doesn’t confer the status of the sixth Igbo state on Rivers as is being touted in some quarters.
“The INC ordinarily would not have responded to such reports if not for the fact that such publications can mislead the gullible reading public. The INC wishes to state categorically, that Rivers as currently populated cannot be referred to as an Igbo state. Rivers population currently has more than 50 percent as Ijaws. There are also other ethnic nationalities like Ogoni, Ekpeye and Eleme.
“Concede that there are people within the lkwerre ethnic nationality who trace their origin to the Igbo ethnic nationality. The fact still remains that they are infinitesimal as some historians within the same Ikwerre ethnic nationality are daily disputing their ties to the Igbo,” the INC said, submitting further that it would similarly be unjust, for the Ijaw nation to claim ownership of states because of the mere fact that such states contain Ijaw population.
“For the sake of clarity, the fact that Ijaw people exist in states like Ondo, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Abia does not make such states Ijaw states. Also, that Prof. Benjamin Okaba, the president of the INC is from Delta, does not automatically convert it to Ijaw state. Ijaws lay claim only to Bayelsa as an Ijaw state, simply because it is predominately occupied by the Ijaws. The fact of geography, history and ethnic web does not lie. Ijaws are not ready to concede any inch of their land to anybody. For those who have little flair for history, ljaws are known never to bow to anybody,’’ Oyakemeagbegha said.
For now, no one knows which way the wind will blow; whether stakeholders in the apex Igbo socio-cultural group will be able to get their acts together and reconcile the members of the three factions or the three executives will stick to their guns, insisting to having the legitimacy to pilot the affairs of Ohanaeze Ndigbo until the next election of new executives.
