2nd December, 2020

We the leaders of the Coalition of Igbo Organizations Worldwide, having deliberated on the coming Ohaneze Ndigbo elections and having considered the events that transpired in quick succession in Imo state, where some group of people convened at Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu’s glass house in Owerri to anoint a consensus candidate in spite of the fact that there are other contenders in the race to succeed Chief Nnia Nwodo as the leader of Ohaneze Ndigbo. And a few days later they presented him as such to Sen Hope Uzodinma the Governor of Imo State.

Consequently, and in order to guarantee the credibility of the process as well as to rebuild confidence in the process, we hereby resolve as follows:

We shall actively monitor the election processes to it’s logically conclusion;
For the credibility of the electioneering process and to reassure statutory members of the Ime Obi Ohaneze being the highest decision making organ in Igbo Affairs which is scheduled to meet this weekend in Alaigbo to discharge their constitutional duties as the organ whose sole function it is to constitute members of the Electoral Committee, and further conduct the elections.
Being that some group of people have recently pre-empted the functions of the Ime Obi by declaring one of the candidates a consensus candidate;
We therefore urge the current Ohaneze Ndigbo President and members of the Executive to make arrangement for a zoom link for statutory members of the Ime Obi Ohaneze to attend the meeting via Zoom Conferencing platform.
We are all aware that the OHA (“we the people”) are not in support of the irregular process of having to anoint one of the contenders a consensus candidate, and therefore members of Ime Obi should not be exposed unduly since Imo State Government have taken sides and have vowed to deliver its candidate.

In this era of global pandemic Zoom Conferencing has become a new normal for meetings, and it has been utilized by the leadership of Ohaneze Ndigbo; it is advisable if same would be used for the Ime Obi Ohaneze meeting summoned especially for the Ohaneze Ndigbo elections.

We believe this will amongst others, restore credibility in the process.

Moreover, since the Imo State Governor has recently and publicly declared his support for the consensus candidate, he further avowed that he would impress on other Igbo Governors to support his candidate. Therefore on this point alone and per confidence building it may be ideal to consider the zoom confidencing option.