The leadership of the youth wing of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council, OYC, Sunday distanced itself from a report which purportedly accused Nnamdi Kanu of “seeking self recognition.”
The report was a fallout of a meeting between the group and the Arewa Youth Coalition in Abuja over the recent quit notice handed down to the Igbos living in various parts of the North, to leave the region before October 1 this year.
Vanguard quoted Chairman of the Coalition of Northern Youths, Yerima Shettima after the meeting as saying “Leaving Nnamdi Kanu to go unpunished is totally unacceptable to us because he has so far done much damage on our psyche and our nation.
“So, for us we think the best we can do is to internationalize this struggle. Behind the background of what we are doing today, most likely in the event of anything falling short of what we agreed, of course we are already in the UN reporting this same character.
“That does not stop us discussing to arrive at a particular conclusion where we can have peace for the country.
“On our previous position, we have not officially withdrawn the quit notice given to the Igbos in the North but we said it few days ago that we will review our position and part of that steps is what we are taking now.
“I thank God we are talking with a recognized body of entire youths organisation in the South-east called Ohanaeze Youth Council that is known everywhere.
“It means that this is a welcome development and we are happy that they have actually sought to get our audience to discuss the way forward out of all these uprisings.
“We are glad to get some words coming out from the leadership of Ohanaeze Youth Council specifically on the area of seeking to see us to discuss issues; it means they realized that we are very angry and a lot of things has falling out of place as a result of their short coming in the sense that if they had called the young man to order from time past we wouldn’t have gone to this extreme.
“The second one is the assurance gotten from the president of the council. If I quote him very well, he said; ‘Nnamdi Kanu is just looking for self recognition’, and we became more relaxed and comfortable getting that from him and third one is him making efforts to bring MASSOB and IPOB together for us to go into round table discussion. I think it is a welcome development.”
However, in terse message sent to DAILY POST Sunday night by OYC Secretary General, Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, he described the report as embarrassing and mischievous.
“The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council wishes to state clearly that it was misquoted to the effect that “the President Of Ohanaeze Youths said that Nnamdi Kanu is seeking self recognition’.
“The issue of Nnamdi Kanu never came up, we will never condemn the self determination clamourd by the IPOB and the MASSOB.
“Rather, our meeting with Northern youths under the auspices of Arewa youths was to find a middle ground on how to resolve issues of the quit notice; we had a fruitful discussion and we urge our people and the press not to derail this peace process between Ohanaeze Youths and Arewa Youths”, Okwu stated.
Meanwhile, the two bodies have set up a dialogue committee with a view to bringing the issue of the quit notice to an end.
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