Igbo Nation Warns Tinubu Over Plot To Remove Ekweremadu, Threatens To Declare Him Enemy Of Ndigbo

Bola Tinubu

By Simon Ateba/Lagos @simonateba

The Igbo nation has warned a Yoruba politician and leader of the fractious All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, over a plot  to remove duly elected deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who is an Igbo man and a member of the defeated People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

Ekweremadu was elected Deputy Senate President in June following the emergence of Bukola Saraki as the Senate President. Saraki is a member of the ruling APC, but the party, especially the Tinubu bloc, had endorsed another candidate for the position. However, Saraki and his loyalists in APC teamed up with the opposition PDP which has 49 of the 109 senators in the Senate to defeat the party’s candidate on election day.

With Saraki’s emergence, the same coalition elected Ekweremadu of the opposition PDP as Deputy Senate President. His emergence shocked APC members across Nigeria who could not have imagined after an overwhelming victory at the polls in March and April that they would be led by an opposition member from a minority party in the Senate. Since then, the party has been trying unsuccessfully to remove him.

This week, reports said, the Deputy Senate President was invited by the police for an alleged investigation. The move to remove Ekweremadu, the only Igbo man at a senior national political level at the moment has angered an Igbo nation which overwhelmingly voted for President Goodluck Jonathan in the last elections, lost, but smiled as it watched APC fail to provide the leadership it had promised Nigerians. It also gladdened Ndigbo that an Igbo man outsmarted the ruling party to emerge deputy senate president. Now, their joy is turning into anger as a plot to remove Ekweremadu thickens.

On Friday, the youth wing of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Ohanaeze Youth Council, alleged in a statement that Tinubu is behind the plot to remove Ekweremadu as the deputy Senate President, and warned that should he continue, he will incur the wrath of the Igbo nation and will be declared an enemy of Ndigbo.

The statement was issued in Umuahia by the OYC National President, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro.

The group warned Tinubu and other anti Igbo forces in APC  to retrace their steps or face a common fate, a common Igbo anger.

Isiguzoro said the plot to remove Ekweremadu was an affront on the Igbo nation which would not be tolerated.

 “Being fully aware that the present plot is being orchestrated by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, we ask him to re-trace his steps forthwith or we shall declare him an enemy of Ndigbo.

 “We are aware that Buhari is under intense pressure to endorse the ‘Ekweremadu must go plot.’ This is the time for the President to prove that he belongs to nobody, Tinubu inclusive, but that he belongs to everybody, Ndigbo inclusive,” the organisation said.

Nigerian Newspaper, The Punch, reported that another Igbo group, Izu-Umunna Cultural Association, has asked the APC to accept the election of Ekweremadu as the deputy senate president as the will of God.

The association also asked the Federal Government to relocate the Boko Haram detainees from Ekwulobia prison facilities in the South-East because their presence has been creating tension in the region, the newspaper said.

The group issued expressed its position in a statement jointly signed by its President, Dr. Ugo Ihekuna, and Secretary-General, Chief Elvis Chukwu.

Since the Nigerian civil war ended in 1970, there has been mutual suspicion between the Igbo and Yoruba nations. Although both ethnic groups live in the same country, Igbo and Yoruba do not seem to have much love for each other. The last election showed how deep the divisions still persist today, 45 years after the civil war ended with Igbo backing Goodluck Jonathan and Yoruba supporting Muhammadu Buhari and Yemi Osinbajo. The defeat of the Igbo nation during that war ended their dream of creating an independent state of Biafra, owned and administered by the Igbo people.

Recently, Radio Biafra emerged online aiming to revive the dream of an independent Igbo nation and break away from Nigeria, a country they argue has not fully accepted them, but has also tragically, refused to let them go.