A former Governor of Anambra State, Ogbonnaya Onu, has appealed to the Igbos in South-Eastern Nigeria to support the incoming All Progressives Congress government of the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari.
Mr. Onu, an APC chieftain and former chairman of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples’ Party, spoke on Wednesday, during a rally organised by the South-East APC in Owerri, Imo State, to celebrate Mr. Buhari’s victory in Saturday’s presidential election.
He noted the “new direction” which Nigeria now faced following the historic victory of the opposition APC, and declared that the people of the South-East must not be left out.
He said the Peoples Democratic Party had failed to justify the support of the South-East.
“The Igbos must support General Buhari to secure their lives and property, to secure their prosperity and guarantee their progress in this new journey to build a new Nigeria,” Mr. Onu said.
“South-East people need Nigeria just as it needs them. Igbo is the only ethnic group in Nigeria whose people cannot be found as indigenes of any other country in the world. Nigeria is the only country the Igbos know.”
He said the APC leaders of Igbo extraction, including himself and Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha, played a major role in the formation of the party. He assured his kinsmen that their interests would be secured in Mr. Buhari’s government.
Dismissing the results of the Saturday’s elections where President Jonathan won with a landslide in the five South-East states of Imo, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi and Abia, he said, “Results were written in private homes. Those rejected in the election were declared winners. APC members were intimidated, harassed and humiliated.”
Mr. Onu’s claim that the PDP rigged the Saturday’s elections in the South-East was corroborated by Mr. Okorocha, who also spoke at the rally.
Mr. Okorocha insisted that APC won majority of the votes in the region but the PDP rigged the polls with the support of the police, soldiers and INEC officials.
The Imo Governor said that PDP wanted to award votes in millions to PDP to balance Mr. Buhari’s votes from the North and South-West, but for the opposition of the APC leaders.
He also cursed “Igbo sons and daughters who used soldiers to intimidate their own people”.
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