The President General of Mbieri Nwaotuoke in Mbaitoli LGA of Imo State, Deacon Chuma Okwodu has insisted that traditional rulers of the area lack constitutional right to steer the affairs of the town unions.
Deacon Okwodu flayed a newspaper report quoting Eze Peter Opara as saying that he (Okwodu) was no longer President General of Mbieri Nwaotuoke.
He informed that his tenure is still running, pointing out that the Chairman of Imo State Council of Ndieze, Eze Samuel Ohiri had resolved the crisis rocking the union.
He said, part of the resolution was that the status quo should be maintained pending the review of union’s constitution.
Okwodu said that the intrusion of Eze Peter Opara into the leadership of the union has created tension and anxiety among the members who before now were planning for the election of the new executive.
He said; “We were elected in 2015 for a four-year tenure and ready to conduct election so as to usher in a new crop of leadership before Eze Peter Opara who is functioning as the chairman of the Mbieri Clan Council of Traditional Rulers with few others decided to truncate the election and the members of the union in their magnanimity in a general meeting decided to elongate our tenure to February 2020.
“Mbieri Nwaotuoke is a clan union of all Mbieri people. A voluntary union, which we have decided to use in order to bring all Mbieri people together and not, in any community ownership and it is like Orluzurumee social cultural organization, Ezuruezu Mbaise , Olu Owerri etc and our supreme powers lied in the general meeting and all the supreme authority is vested in the general meetings.
“In the general meetings the members made suggestions for the traditional rulers of Mbieri to only play advisory roles which they are now taking for granted”.
NATIONAL NEWSBREAK
