The Apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide has come hard on former minister, Rotimi Amaechi over his recent comment that his earlier claim of being Igbo was all politics.
Amaechi while speaking before a crowd of supporters at the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential campaign in Aba, Abia State in 2015, said: I am a bonafide Igbo man.
“My name is Amaechi but President Jonathan, who says his name is Azikiwe, cannot speak the Igbo language."
But, the former Rivers State governor in an interview on Arise Television's Prime Time earlier in the week, said he is an Ikwerre man from Rivers State, adding that he associated himself with the Igbo people to make Nigerians address the cries of marginalisation by the Southeast.
"I'm an Ikwerre man. If you ask an Ikwerre man who are you, he will tell you that I'm an Ikwerre man.
"So, what you can say is that is an Ikwerre man an Igbo man? There are divergent views, the majority will say no, but there is a very tiny minority which includes me.
"Why did I take that position? It's political but not to win the votes of the Igbos. I didn't like the way Igbos were being treated at a particular point in time - in protest against the Igbos I began to wear the Tiger head cloth with the red cap.
"I wore it in protest asking Nigerians to address their problems. Again, I made it public that I'm an Igbo man in protest."
Reacting, the National President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide, Mazi Okwu Nnabuike slammed Amaechi for exhibiting what he called “a shameless and treacherous character.”
Okwu, in a statement made available to journalists on Friday, said it was regrettable that someone who now parades as a lover of Nigerians and an advocate of the masses could come out to display a public show of shame.
“We were shocked to the marrow to listen to Rotimi Amaechi make such a U-turn on national television.
“This is the same man who accused former President Goodluck Jonathan of not being an Igbo man, simply because he (Amaechi) needed the votes of Ndigbo for his party, the APC in 2015.
“Fast forward to 2025, the same man, 10 years later, has now told Nigerians that he lied to them.
“What this clearly shows is that Amaechi is a man who can do anything for politics; who can say anything just to get what he wants politically.
“How can we explain the fact that someone who personally declared that he is an Igbo man 10 years ago, now shamelessly tells the whole world that he did that all for politics.
“What this clearly shows is that he is in the league of politicians who have no character, who believe that all is fair in politics,” Okwu stated.
He then urged Nigerians and all those who are identifying with the coalition ahead of the 2027 election “to beware of a man who says something in the morning and upturns it in the evening.
"Particullary, we advise Mr Peter Obi to be wary of such a man. He should not be seen to be associating with a man who is making a caricature of Ndigbo.
“Such a person is not to be trusted and we now see why Nyesom Wike clearly said that Amaechi has no capacity.
“How can such a man have capacity when he is living a life of treachery, when he is telling lies to get what he wants.
“However we want to make it clear to Amaechi and his likes that Ndigbo are not looking for people like him. We know genuine Igbo men and women when we see them, and we have a handful of them,” Okwu declared.
Okwu warned that Ndigbo would never be taken for granted by anyone stressing that “we are waiting for Amaechi in 2027 when he will come to any state in the South-East to open his lies-filled mouth. He will hear from us at the appropriate time, because we know he shall surely need Ndigbo again.
“We have had enough from people like him and we say never again.”