Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC) leader, Okafor
Ohanaeze’s youth council elects new leadership
[From CHINEDU NWAFOR, Abakaliki]
Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC) has elected Mr. Damian Okafor its National Youth Leader.
Okafor from Ivo Local Government of Ebonyi state defeated 3 other contestants in a peaceful election held at the Ohanaeze Secretariat in Enugu, Thursday.
Delegates from the seven Igbo speaking State of Abia, Anambra, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo and Rivers states participated in the election.
Speaking with Journalists shortly after the election, the National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Chiedozie Alex Ogbonnia, charged the new youth leadership to discharge their duties diligently, even as he urged them to support Ohanaeze National leadership in moving the Igbo nation forward.
On Obiora’s allegation, Ogbonnia said he was not aware of any breach of the Ohanaeze constitution or court order restraining Ohanaeze from conduction the youth election.
“As far as I am concerned, the previous leadership came into power during the Nnia Nwodo led administration and once a new leadership emerges, we must elect new youth council to work with the new national leadership and that has been our custom in Ohanaeze.
“Nnia Nwodo’s tenure had 2 wings, which are women and youth wings, and as Nwodo tenure ended,do you still want the new leadership to continue with the old wings? The new leadership must develop new wings, that’s the constitution of Ohanaeze and that’s why we decided to conduct new election,”he explained.
Meanwhile, Arthur Obiora, a former Youth leader of the Council has accused the Ohanaeze leadership of breaching its constitution.
Obiora said he was elected in 2018 and his tenure had not elapsed to warrant a fresh election.
“I was elected in 2018 alongside other youth leaders and we are supppsed to stay in office for 4 years which means another election should be conducted next year but unfortunately, the leadership is conducting a fresh election today (Thursday) while our tenure is yet to elapse.
“There is also a court injunction stopping Ohanaeze from conducting today’s (Thursday) election but they failed to adhere to the court injunction,” he said.
