The youth wing of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohaneze Ndigbo on Thursday in Enugu elected new executive members to run its affairs for the next four years.
The election is coming barely seven months after the emergence of Prof. George Obiozor as the president general of the association.
The election which had delegates from Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo in the South-East and Delta and Rivers in the South-South region produced Mr Damian Okafor from Ebonyi as national youth leader.
Other members of the new executive include Mr Jones Onwuasoanya (deputy national youth leader), Mr Ezechukwu Okpala (national secretary), Mr Arthur Ugwu (financial secretary), Mr Chika Adiele (publicity secretary) among others.
In his acceptance speech, Okafor, who spoke on behalf of other members of the executive, thanked the delegates for reposing such confidence in them.
The national youth leader said that the tasks ahead of them were enormous as their election came at a time when parts of the country were faced with security challenges.
He said that their first mission would be to ensure that they built bridges of hope, peace and unity with other socio-cultural youth organisations across the country.
He applauded the peaceful and transparent conduct of the election and appealed to the contestants that could not make the executive to join hands with it to move the association forward.
Okafor also said that his priority would be to ensure that youths in the seven states covered by the association were united and also to promote the culture of the Igbo nation.
“We are happy to have been elected to lead out and we call on everyone to join hands with us to move the association forward,” Okafor said.
Meanwhile, the immediate past national youth leader of the association, Mr Arthur Obiora, faulted the conduct of the election and claimed that his tenure was still running.
Obiora, who stormed the venue of the election with his supporters said that he was elected in May 2018 but sworn-in for a four-year tenure in January 2019.
He said that he was shocked that the parent body went ahead with the election in spite of a subsisting court injunction to stop the exercise.
“As far as I am concerned, there is no vacancy for the position of national youth leader. I was elected in May 2018 and sworn-in in January 2019.
“The constitution says we should stay for four years. By virtue of this, we are not up to four years.
“I got an injunction restraining them from going ahead with this election but they went ahead,” he said.
Obiora said that he had yet to be told the reason his tenure was cut short, adding that he had no problem with anyone.
“I believe in the rule of law and at the right time the court will decide one way or the other,” Obiora said.
When contacted, the Publicity Secretary of the association, Chief Alex Ogbonnia, said that he was not aware of any court injunction to stop the election.
Ogbonnia said that the youth and women wings of the organisation were appendages of the parent body which would cease to exist at the expiration of the tenure of the parent body.
He said that Obiora was elected during the tenure of Chief Nnia Nwodo as president general, adding that the constitutional provision made it immaterial whether he served out his tenure or not.
“As far as I am concerned, there is no court injunction stopping this election. With the exit of Nwodo, the wings of his tenure also ended.
“The wings of Nwodo will not stay with Obiozor,” Ogbonnia said.
