The Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe, has said that he was billed to join the Abuja-Kaduna train attacked by bandits on Monday.
The attack, which left no fewer than eight passengers killed, saw many others injured while scores of the passengers were abducted by the assailants.
Speaking when Igbo leaders under the aegis of Ahamefuna socio-cultural organisation converged on Enugu to discuss Igbo presidency in 2023, Igwe Achebe said he only escaped boarding the ill-fated train in Abuja because he got an emergency call while waiting to board the train and had to leave the station.
He said: “I was among the passengers meant to be on the train last Monday because I had a meeting I was supposed to attend. I was already at the train station when I got a call over an emergency and I had to leave the station to attend to it.
The monarch decried the increasing insecurity situation in the country.
The Ahamefuna event, tagged “the need for Nigerian Presidency from the Southeast Nigeria come 2023”, saw the gathering of such leaders as elder statesman Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu; Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo; Chief Achike Udenwa; former governors Enugu and Imo states; the Obi; former ministers; senators; clerics; traditional rulers and women and youth leaders, charging Southeast politicians to stand firm in demanding that their political parties zone the 2023 presidential tickets to the region.
In a communiqué read by the former chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, the leaders said that Nigerian president of Southeast extraction will put to an end the agitations for a separate republic.
The leaders also said that Nigerian president of Southeast extraction will usher in unity, peace and progress in the country.
They asked all the political parties, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to zone their presidential tickets to the Southeast for the sake of equity and fairness, adding that without that, efforts at nation-building would be futile.
The resolution reads: “A president from the Southeast will usher in unity, peace and progress in Nigeria. A president from the Southeast will guarantee the cessation of agitation by youths for break-up of the Nigerian state.
“That our case is sufficiently self evident and persuasive to jolt the conscience of the nation to do justice to our people.
