…warns against hate speech
Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, yesterday stated that Southeast was open for all the presidential candidates in the 2023 general elections to carry out their campaigns.
The Igbo group cautioned against campaign of calumny, inciting violence, and provocative threats from Igbo groups and supporters of one of the Presidential candidates against the APC Presidential candidate, Sen Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Secretary-General of the group, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, stated this in a release issued in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital.
He noted that, ” Ndigbo have an unrestricted culture of accommodation and warm reception for neighboring states and visitors from far and wide. As travelers, we welcome our visitors with open arms and politics will never change our ways of reasoning and reflections.
Ohanaeze appealed to the southeast youths and supporters of Presidential candidates to eschew violence and shun attempts to take laws into their own hands by issuing empty threats or using health related issues as an instrument of blackmail against anyone in the presidential campaigns.
Adding: “We are speaking in the background of threats of commotion and violence issued against Sen Bola Tinubu. We are aware of the fact that Igbo youths have been shortchanged by the way Federal Government has empowered youths from other zones while excluding the southeast youths.I t’s an open secret that southeast has been at the receiving end of Federal Government’s policies and programs since 2015, and we appeal for a truce and allow peace to reign”.
“2023 Campaigns should be Issues- based not blackmail and dwelling on trivial matters. Ndigbo is open to receiving all Presidential candidates for the 2023 presidential election. We will receive all of them unrestricted, and interface with them and take decisions before the elections. We will weigh all options in the eyes of being sidelined for 7 years by the Federal Government. Presidential candidates should not be parochial with any zone or ignore any region during their campaigns”.