Anambra guber aspirant bemoans leadership disconnect from citizens A former presidential candidate, Prof. Kingsley Moghalu has charged Ndigbo to look beyond the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and plan towards repositioning the South East region beyond his era. Insisting that the Buhari government would end in the next 23 months, he also stated that the current secession agitation might not succeed now due to several constitutional, international and other extraneous factors. Moghalu, who spoke on What Do The Igbo Want at the inauguration ceremony of the Igbonine Socio-Cultural Organisation in Enugu yesterday, insisted that although Ndigbo were committed to an indivisible Nigeria, time was ripe for the rest of the country to prove their commitment to a country anchored on equity, fairness and justice. Lamenting the situation of the Igbo since the end of the civil war, he stated that while the region had survived economically, Moghalu, who had declared his intention to run for the 2023 presidential election, said it had become difficult for the South East to survive politically, due to the psychological impact of defeat in the civil war. He said the situation had brought several choices on the people of the region including constitutional restructuring to true federalism with significant autonomy for regional or state governments, demand for a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction, secession (Biafra) and allowing the status quo to remain. Moghalu, who is a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), argued that although restructuring was inevitable for Nigeria to survive, President Buhari’s public opposition to it would make it difficult to be realised during his time in office. On a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction, Moghalu stated that it was essential to stabilise the country and secure full reconciliation after the Nigeria civil war, regretting that the option was, however, under attack from some forces outside the South East region. He also decried the situation in which the two major political parties in the country-the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) were not committed to allowing a president from the South East region. IN a related development, Managing Director of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Dr. George Moghalu, yesterday, declared that one of the major challenges to the development and advancement in the country was the disconnect between government and the people. Moghalu, who is a governorship aspirant in the November 6, 2021, Anambra State gubernatorial election, disclosed this in Lokoja, Kogi State, while addressing journalists, maintaining that his mission was to restore the people’s confidence in governance through good leadership. “So, my mission mainly, is to restore confidence, restore the people’s confidence in government before infrastructure development.” The people will be willing to work with the government once their confidence is restored. It is about engagement. “When people see the honesty, commitment and dedication of their leaders, there is no way they won’t listen to the government. Insecurity, insurgence and other challenges will also attract my immediate concern,” he said. On his chances in the APC governorship primaries, he said: “I have offered myself and I know I have what it takes. I believe strongly that power belongs to God and he gives it to whosoever He pleases at His own time. I’m confident that by the grace of God, I will make it.”

Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has flayed the South East Governors and other political leaders in the region over the disowning and condemnation statement credited to them against the group and its security outfit, Eastern Security Network, ESN. The group said it was regrettable that the Igbo leaders would be quick to disown and betray their own in their quest to appease their slave masters. In a statement issued by the Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, IPOB who noted the leaders had since lost grip and control of the masses, explained that the move was a desperate attempt to regain the trust of their paymasters. The statement read in part, “The attention of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) ably led by our great leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has been drawn to the purported disowning and condemnation of IPOB and the Eastern Security Network, ESN, by the frustrated South East Governors and few self-centered political leaders in the region. “We are not however, surprised because they were the same people to proscribe us before the federal government tagged us terrorists. “The purported statement by these shameless political generals without foot soldiers has only further exposed them as Caliphate boot-leakers. They know too well that they have since lost grip and control of the masses, hence, their desperation to regain the trust of their paymasters. “The only publicly disowned IPOB thinking that doing so will make them regain the trust and favour of the Caliphate. “The governors, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the handful traitors masquerading as the Igbo political elite should wake up to the realities that they have since lost the confidence of the people. We understand the worry of these governors: They are rattled by the unflinching support and loyalty of the masses to IPOB. “It’s only unfortunate, shameful and disgraceful that the so-called Igbo leaders will be quick to disown and betray their own in their quest to appease their slave masters. The South East Governors again, in 2017 they sat together in Enugu State to proscribe IPOB and federal government declared them terrorists with the support of South East Governors while they are not. “To their shame, how many times have their Northern counterparts disowned the bloody terrorists, bandits and Fulani herdsmen rampaging the country? “So, the South East self-acclaimed Leaders are quick to disown IPOB and ESN, yet they are calling us to accept the calls for peaceful negotiations? What a hypocrisy! “How can South East governors be so desperate for power beyond 2023 that they can sacrifice anything and anybody for personal gains? In case they don’t know, even the Northerners they are trying to impress understand the handwriting on the wall. They know that the governors are on their own. They can’t decide for the over 70 million Biafrans home and abroad. “How can five South East governors determine the fate of over 70m people? These South East Vassals should know that during referendum, they only have one vote just like the man on the street. “If these politicians are discerning enough, they should know that they should first push for referendum to determine if the people they pretend to be speaking for actually have their support. No matter their pretenses, our people are tired of One Nigeria. They have since opted for Biafra, and there is no going back on this irrevocable resolve! “We want to unequivocally declare again, that the five South East governors and the few self-appointed Igbo elite are too infinitesimal to speak for the millions of Biafrans who are tired of being held hostage in this contraption called Nigeria. They don’t even command the loyalty of all their appointees let alone the egalitarian Igbo nation that never gave them the stolen mandate they parade. “Anybody listening to these traitors does so to his peril. There is no negotiation on the people’s resolve to restore Biafra where human dignity will be respected.”