Ndigbo Cultural Society of Nigeria (NCSN) has asked former Education Minister Oby Ezekwesili to stop attacking President Goodluck Jonathan, for the sake of national good and to build on the recent gains of the South East.
Oby Ezekwesili
NCSN Coordinator, Udoka Udeogaranya, said her statements embarrass Ndigbo and their culture, where messages to a king are couched in diplomatic language.
Ezekwesili, who is also former Vice President of World Bank (Africa Region), spoke at the All Progressives Congress (APC) national summit in Abuja on March 6 in a way some regard as indecorous to the federal government.
“We are deeply concerned about Oby Ezekwesili’s overnight critic super heavyweight posture against a government that has done the very best for Ndigbo when compared with the past 11 regimes in the last 44 years since the return of Ndigbo from Biafra,” Udeogaranya said in a statement.
“For the record, Ezekwesili was part of Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration that did nothing for Ndigbo, and while she was in that government, nobody knew her as a critic of bad governance.”
In just one term, the group recounted, Jonathan offered Ndigbo rare appointments like that of chief of army staff, and extended the tenure when it expired, an act the group said proves that he is at home and secure with Ndigbo.
“Jonathan upgraded Enugu Airport from an abandoned domestic airport to an international status, unbanned all the goods Ndigbo import, which were earlier banned by the administration Ezekwesili served in, reconstructed the Lagos-Ore-Benin-Onitsha highway, a road that serves Ndigbo more than any other ethnic group in the country.”
Udeogaranya said Jonathan also gave Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu a state burial and the Nnamdi Azikiwe Mausoleum, which the Obasanjo administration and other past administrations abandoned, is now nearing completion.
“Or do we talk about the second Niger Bridge that Obasanjo performed a macabre dance over in Onitsha, just to fill space in his valedictory speech, which is now under construction by Julius Berger during Jonathan’s administration.”
