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Ndikelionwu people move against ‘sit-tight PG’ *Want Soludo to reverse tenure extension
Nothing short of the immediate reversal of the tenure extension granted Edozie Obasi, President General of Ndikelionwu Welfare Association (NWA), will satisfy the community currently protesting the gesture extended by the government of Anambra State.
Community leaders who trooped to Ajali, headquarters of Orumba North Local Government Area are accusing the embattled PG of deceiving Chukwuma Soludo, Anambra State Governor into endorsing the extension, by providing him with false report of the situation in the town.
Contrary to the dummy he allegedly sold that those opposed to the governor were fomenting trouble in the community and were after him for the massive support he had been mustered in the last governorship election, the leaders insisted that the PG’s motive for his sit-tight agenda was actually to cover his track over multiple infractions, ranging from land-grabbing in the community to a plot to transmute into the traditional throne of the ancient kingdom.
Leaders, who led a delegation to the council headquarters in Ajalli, on Wednesday, took turns to brief Casmir Nwafor, its chairman on the details of the PG’s activities, including how he deliberately bungled the NWA elections, scheduled for December 27, last year, thus handing him an alibi to seek the extension.
On the contrary, the community told the council boss, a retired captain of the Nigerian Army of their love for the governor, culminating in their donating a massive 98 per cent vote for him during the November 8 polls, making them the community with the highest votes in that regard in the council.
Those in the delegation, that also handed the council boss a letter to Soludo appealing for a reversal of the tenure extension, included Mazi Fortune Ike the Palace Secretary; Mazi Okechukwu Okereke former PG; Mazi Emeka Nwankwor; former NWA Assist Secretary, Robinson Obidigbo the community’s Youth Leader, and the Emmanuel Nwene who spoke on behalf of the village chiefs.
Hear him: “We’re here to acquaint the Mayor that we need elections between now and Easter. The tenure of the last one elapsed on 27th of December 2025. So, we’re surprised when we heard of a one-year extension, which is not in our constitution.
“We are in support of the Solution Government. We’re not against any development. What we’re saying is that we’re against any tenure elongation, since we have capable men to take care of the affairs of Ndikelionwu people. That is why we are here to make it known to the Mayor that we are in support of the APGA government.”
Nwafor, who received the letter from the protesters thanked the community for their orderly conduct and promised to pass the message to the governor for immediate action, adding that based on the fresh information provided, he was sure justice would be done to all sides.
Cheered in agreement by the crowd, gave further details about the botched election and the demands of the community, Obidigbo, said the people were ready for the election anytime it was called, but would not accept tenure elongation.
His words: “The former executive, they had finished their first and second tenures with the last one expiring on the 27th of December. On the day of election, they gave us details of their stewardship and Ndikelionwu General Assembly dissolved them. Now, the electoral committee, which began their work, now read to us that it is only the financial members that were eligible to vote.
“After several questions and back and forth, they insisted that it was a constitutional matter and it must be followed strictly. Some of us, now agreed that if that was the case, let it be so. We now demanded for the list of financial members. But surprisingly, the same union could not provide the nominal role of the financial members of Ndikelionwu Welfare Association. That became the confusion.
“That bastardised our election. That was the betrayal of our election. If the town union wants to conduct an election and they say it is the financial list of nominal roll, our constitution, article 14.6, item E, has it that the Financial Secretary is responsible for the production, update of the nominal roll of the Ndikelionwu Welfare Association.
“How come they could not provide it on the day of the election? To so many of us, it was a calculated attempt to sabotage our election. Now, the same town union that has been dissolved, brought a letter to us that their tenure has been extended. Now, we begin to question, we don’t know how. But there was a story around obtaining that extension. The question the people of Ndikelionwu are now asking is what is that story.
“Ndikelionwu people are supporters of Solution government. We’re supporters of Solution project in Ndikelionwu. We voted massively for Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, because we believe in him. The question then is who must have done this?
“That is why we’re here. Now what the people of Ndikelionwu are saying is that we want town union election. If you give it to us today, we’re ready for it, if you give it to us tomorrow, we’re ready for it, if you give it to us next tomorrow, we’re ready for it. We don’t want extension. It is illegal in all forms.
“Ndikelionwu people are peaceful people. Ndikelionwu people are ready anytime, any day to collaborate with Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo. We provided our land for development, we’ll continue and we’re ready to provide more. This is why we have come.
“We know our Mayor is a man of justice. He is a youthful Mayor. Our Governor, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo is a youthful governor, he cannot encourage such a thing. That is why we’ve come to tell our own side of the story. We don’t want tenure extension. We want immediate election. This is what we’re asking for.”
Ike, the palace Secretary, who expressed surprise at the turn of events, explained that the mission of the community was based on the record of Soludo’s government for justice and open-handedness, expressing confidence that such attributes would not change in the case of the community.
“Nobody has given us any cogent reason for not having our election. What we heard is tenure elongation. We’re not happy about it. We demand election and not elongation. All these placards are showing our message. Soludo is our man.
“We’re enthralled about his wonderful record. But unfortunately, we’re hearing a different story when it got to our turn. There is light everywhere and the roads are being expanded and everything is happening good. Let this election be icing on the cake.”
Welcoming the delegation, the council boss, Nwafor, who thanked the community for the massive votes given to the governor, expressed his personal love for the people of the community, the reason he said he picked his deputy from the town.
“Ndike is so dear to the governor and to the local government. Being dear to the governor is not just by empty words. He has demonstrated it by bringing a massive project to your community. So, the governor has special love for Ndikelionwu community.
It is because of that love that he doesn’t want your community to be in crisis. Last year, we were informed in Awka and the local government that Ndikelionwu will have their elections. We sent a delegation to ensure there was no problem. But unfortunately, we heard there was no election. I wasn’t there.
“But when I asked why, I was informed of the list of financial and non-financial members. Of course these things are usually well-stated. Before becoming Mayor, I was PG in Oko. We have the same way of doing it. When we say it is only financial members, it is usually well-stated.
“I don’t know how you conduct your own. It is only now that we’re getting further details. But the governor had reasoned in his own wisdom that instead of leaving your community without a leader, and because nobody came to explain this, he should give these people time to conduct a proper election, so that the project at hand in your community would not be jeopardised.
“We don’t intend to undermine your community. The step was taken in the interest of peace – to ensure that the project in your community is well guarded. But now, we’ve heard you people.
“I’m now going to forward your message to the governor today and not tomorrow. You did well by coming to me first. Some people would have proceeded to Awka first. I like the procedure you took and the peaceful nature of your protest. Everyone has a right to demonstrate. I must commend you that you came here peacefully.
“I particularly notice that your delegation is not made up of anyhow people. You have the timber and calibre of your community here. Fortunately, our governor is a listening governor. We’ll take your message to Awka.
“We’re going to explain to him and see how he could help you to conduct an election, which is what you want. Our governor believes in democracy. He’s not an autocratic human being. So, I’ve heard what you people came for and we’re going to do the needful.”
I will always refer to the encounter I once had with Kenneth Idiodi. He was then the leader of the Rosicrucian Society in Nigeria, otherwise known as Amok. It was a sit-down at Zodiac Hotel Enugu. Then, I was the reporter of The Guardian in the Coal City.
You know the Amok faith bases its philosophy or belief on the law of Retributive Justice – the law of Karma. That is to say, everything you do in life has its rewards or punishment in equal measure – much like the measure you give, the measure you receive.
I don’t know how much this society draws or links this belief from or with the Bible, but I do recall Jesus Christ warning Simon Peter – return your sword to the scabbard – for he who kills by the sword, dies by the sword.
As a child growing up I listened to one of the epics of Oriental Brothers with the lyrics – ogbu mma ga-esi n’mma na, ogba egbe ga-esi n’egbe na ooo! Translated – he who kills by the sword will die by the sword, he who kills by the gun will die by the nozzle of the gun.
Now, here is where this is relevant in present Nigerian reality – the reason I’m putting details of that encounter out publicly once again, having done so previously.
During that encounter, Idiodi used one event in Nigeria to illustrate his point. He told me of a Nigerian leader who commanded the troop that carried out the Asaba massacre in the heat of the Nigerian civil war – an episode, said to have claimed over 2,000 able-bodied men who had come out to welcome the Nigerian soldiers with songs and dances only to fall in the hail of bullets that descended on them like rainstorms – was not spared by fate.
That commander was to meet his own death in a hail of bullets even as a Head of State. He never mentioned the name of the military top brass. But I used my tongue to count my teeth to come to the answer. You could also do same – use your tongue.
Now, how does this relate? You may have followed the outing of General Yakubu Gowon at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, Abuja, where he presented his autobiography titled: My Life of Duty and Allegiance, that contained what seemed his memoir on the Nigerian civil war, which he prosecuted as Head of State.
I’m sure you must have been observing the debate therefrom that event. Now, I’m not so much enamoured of the debate as I’m of the nuances surrounding that unfortunate episode and the role of Gowon in it, given my takeaway from that Idiodi encounter some two decades ago.
Does Gowon, now a nonagenarian really believe that presenting a pious, if not saintly account of himself to the world as snippets of his book, which I picked up here and there suggests, truly suffices for the atrocities of that period?
Take the Asaba massacre for example. Was that the handiwork of Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, whom the former Head of State seems to blame for everything that went wrong. Was he also the one that commanded that mass slaughtering of innocent men?
Under your nose as Head of State, you watched citizens slaughtered mercilessly like infested herds in the streets – you watched young girls corralled into leprosy colonies and wantonly raped before being wasted – you watched as train coaches bearing people fleeing the scene were stopped and their human cargoes thrown alive into River Benue like rotten goods for fishes to feast on – you watched all these and didn’t lift a finger.
Then as Head of State, you not only supervised but watched millions of children with distended stomachs, tiny feet, glazy eyes, heavy heads on ropelike necks, practically begging for death to come quickly and save them from further punishment.
You supervised and watched the cataclysmic eruptions from the blitzkrieg on churches, markets and hospitals – all to keep Nigeria together. In your mind the brutal and merciless butchery of innocent people who were not soldiers and had nothing to do with the war could be explained away just like that?
O! It was Ojukwu that caused it. Ojukwu was the one who released the bombs, caused the blockades that led to the kwashiorkor that killed millions or other atrocities thereof? What a pity!
Now, I return to Idiodi. How else could anyone interpret today’s Nigeria without introducing the law of retributive justice that the Amok leader spoke of? How do you fault the link of the commander who massacred over 2,000 souls dying by the barrel of the same gun, even as Head of State?
How could anyone fail to relate what is happening to our Gowon today with the past? This is a Geneal that wakes up to see hundreds of his brothers and sisters being buried in mass graves as was done during the onslaught he supervised against another people and he still thinks it has nothing to do with him?
Now, the story you told at that event in Abuja on Tuesday, is not new. You simply repeated yourself. My interpretation of that event is that you’re a man undergoing daily torture. You wouldn’t be a human being otherwise, given what is before you, which didn’t start today.
You’re probably trying to escape your fate by appealing to public sympathy. How helpful could that be in the face of the clear evidence of your culpability in the deliberate wasting of more than three million souls? Nobody would believe you.
Yes! They could humour you. But that’s the best anyone could do for you. I hear money rained like a fountain and that you left the scene with billions of naira in your kitty. At 90? Haba General!
Now, here is the thing General. None of these would help.
None would work. You have tried prayers. But you forget that the prayer of sinner is an abomination and a reproach before God, unless he repents. You have also written the book. Surely, this too would end up in the trashcan of history – meaningless piece of conjectures, propaganda, half-truths and outright lies – perhaps!
But, why don’t you try the one thing you have been running away from, for more than five decades – go on your knees in total supplication and surrender, repentance and penance – then rise, call all Nigerians and empty yourself with the truth.
Thereafter openly apologise to the millions of souls whose tormenting wailing you probably hear every day during your disturbed sleep and in your quiet moments, but choose to suppress with these baby tales. Ask them for forgiveness, genuinely and see. There may lie the answer you seek.
Try that and see if it wouldn’t be a more efficacious cure for this decades-old wound than this Ojukwu-bashing and those wasted prayer sessions. You might not only have atoned for the past, but saved the future. May God guide you.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice
“Now that the court has ruled against it, we are sure that, in the coming days, we will witness a mass exodus from the ruling party,” were the words with which the African Democratic Congress (ADC) welcomed Wednesday’s ruling of the Federal High Court, Abuja reversing the deadline for party primaries, among others.
Bolaji Abdullahi, spokesman, who conveyed the party’s excitement over the development, said it viewed the ruling as vindication of its objections to key aspects of the electoral body’s guidelines at the time they were issued.
Recalling its specific objections to the strict timelines on membership registration as well as the conduct of party primaries, the statement, said: “The decision of the court on these issues, including those that directly contradict the constitution, is therefore a welcome vindication of our position.”
Stressing that the ruling, which removed the impediment placed by the guidelines on politicians who wished to seek alternative platforms to contest elections, was a positive development that would promote freedom of association, the statement, added: “We believed at the time that that particular restriction was designed to prevent people from leaving the ruling party, APC.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Cuba on Thursday that the United States was laser-focused on changing the communist system, after the island was stunned by a US indictment of its former president Raul Castro.
The US military announced that the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its escort warships had entered the Caribbean, although President Donald Trump, asked if the deployment was meant to intimidate Cuba, said, “No, not at all.”
Rubio, a Cuban American and vociferous opponent of Havana’s government, described the island 90 miles (145 kilometres) from the US shore as a “failed state” as it suffers a major economic crisis.
“Their economic system doesn’t work. It’s broken, and you can’t fix it with the current political system that’s in place. What they’ve gotten used to all these years is just buying time and waiting us out.
“They’re not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We’re very serious. We’re very focused. The US preference is always a diplomatic solution, but President Donald Trump has other options at his disposal.”
Stating that Cuba had tentatively accepted an offer by the United States of $100 million in aid in return for reforms, he said it was unclear if the United States would accept Cuba’s terms, as Washington insists on circumventing the military-backed conglomerate GAESA, which dominates the island’s economy.
Rubio said Thursday that the GAESA chief’s Florida-based sister, Adys Lastres Morera, had been arrested and was being held by US immigration authorities, adding in an X post: “Managing real estate assets…while also aiding Havana’s communist regime, until I terminated her permanent resident status.”
The charges against Raul Castro — younger brother of Fidel Castro, the late iconic US nemesis who led Cuba’s communist revolution that culminated in 1959 — stem from the deadly downing of two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots in 1996.
Cuban authorities called on citizens to protest the “despicable” indictment, with the official newspaper Granma urging Cubans to gather outside the US embassy in Havana on Friday at 7:30 am (1230 GMT).
“This isn’t really an accusation, something from more than 30 years ago, but rather a public attack on a public figure,” Fabian Fernandez, a 30-year-old accountant, told AFP in Havana.
Trump in January seized on a US domestic indictment of Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro to send in US forces to depose him and take him into custody.
“The idea is to say, we can do to you what we did to Nicolas Maduro,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.
The Maduro operation led to the end of free oil from Venezuela to Cuba, which relied on its ally for nearly half its needs.
Cubans have suffered power outages of up to 20 hours a day and taps running dry.
Runaway inflation has caused the price of basic goods to soar and mountains of trash have piled up on the streets of Havana.
In addition to murder, Castro has been charged with conspiracy to kill Americans and destruction of aircraft.
The Cuban government called the 1996 shootdown was “legitimate self-defense” against an airspace violation.
China and Russia both criticized Trump’s steps on Cuba, which come as he tries to end an unpopular war he started with Israel against Iran.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a press briefing that Washington “should stop brandishing the sanctions stick and the judicial stick against Cuba and stop threatening force at every turn.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We believe that under no circumstances should such methods — which border on violence — be used against either former or current heads of state.
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