By MAGNUS EZE, Enugu

Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide will next week release modalities for its forthcoming general election to enthrone a new leadership, after a meeting with the Imeobi, its highest decision making organ.

The election, Daily Sun gathered, is slated for January next year.

President General of Ohanaeze, Chief Nnia Nwodo in a statement on Monday, has vowed that his leadership would handover to a new set of credible leaders.

He dismissed as spurious, mendacious and malicious, news making the rounds that a candidate had already been chosen to occupy the post of the President General of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, which by rotation, is now the turn of Imo State.

Nwodo noted that it impinged on the solid and time-tested tradition of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in choosing its leadership and the integrity of its present President General.

He, therefore, urged people to ignore such insinuations, disclosing that no amount of blackmail would derail the ongoing process.

Part of the statement reads: “The truth of the matter is that posts in Ohanaeze Ndigbo are rotational and positions zoned to States. It is the responsibility of States to chose their candidates which they may prune down for their convenience.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo has the responsibility of organising election for all those who indicate interest and buy forms for the election.

It is therefore, preposterous and the height of mischief for anybody to write or in any way infer that Chief Nwodo went for an Imo State stakeholders meeting in Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyawu’s office.

Chief Nwodo couldn’t have been at a meeting of Imo State Leaders Thought for the purpose of choosing a candidate for President General when he wasn’t invited and Ohanaeze didn’t organise it.

“Moreover, the decision at the meeting will not stop Ohanaeze from conducting the forthcoming election.

“As a matter of fact, Chief Nwodo has not visited Chief Iwuanyanwu since the latter’s birthday celebration last year. They only met recently at a meeting with the Governors of the South East over other matters.

“It is wrong for people to listen to an illegitimate, sponsored and disgruntled group of people masquerading as the Youth Wing of Ohanaeze.

“As to the conduct of the election, an announcement will be made by Ohanaeze Ndigbo after the meeting of the Imeobi next week.

“Any current information or story about the forth-coming election remains the figment of the imagination of its purveyor. Any such story is therefore, false, void and puerile.

“No amount of innuendos and blackmail will deter Ohanaeze from bequeathing a virile leadership to Ndigbo.” (Daily Sun)