Stakeholders in Eziama Autonomous Community in Isiala Mbano council area of Imo State have lamented the imposition of leaders on the community, stressing that democratic practice in the area has been jettisoned.
Some of the stakeholders who spoke with newsmen in Owerri said that democratic institutions built by the people of the community could be forced into extinction if urgent steps were not taken to save the situation.
Leadership tussle has been rocking the community following the decision of the traditional ruler, Eze Ishmael Anyadiegwu to appoint a president-general even as the elected president-general, Mr Patrice Unogu had yet to complete his term in office.
Unogu who was initially elected for a four-year term in February 2017 was returned unopposed for a second term in 2021 following the completion of his first term in office as president-general.
One of the stakeholders, the immediate past special adviser to Gov Hope Uzodinma on Inland Security, Chief Pope Ekwegh, described the move by the traditional ruler as “unconstitutional” adding that the state government would never sanction the sack of democratically elected community leaders.
Ekwegh, a one-time South-East publicity secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party said that efforts by the community’s diaspora group to settle the matter and restore peace had proved futile.
The community’s youth president, Mr Tochukwu Ekwegh said in line with the community’s 2018 constitution as amended, “only an election can produce a person who would serve as president-general.”
The community’s Diaspora Chairman, Chief Chidi Anumudu, said that although Anyadiegwu had refused to work with the peace committee report it presented, the group would continue to “push for the legitimate demands of the majority diplomatically and otherwise.”
The chairman, Imo State Traditional Rulers Council, Eze Emmanuel Okeke, said that “although certain circumstances could necessitate the appointment of a president-general, elected community leaders should be allowed to serve out their term in office.”
