President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo has revealed how he brokered peace between Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State: “What happened between Governor Okorocha and Governor Obiano is just a storm in a tea cup and it has been accentuated by your colleagues in the way they addressed it.”

“They had a principled disagreement about a representation of which number of governors was crossing from one party to the other. One made an assertion and the other made a denial. The rebuttals were taken over by their press aides and put in such unpalatable light that embarrassed their superiors. When it happened, I called Governor Okorocha but he was in South Africa. He was not even in Nigeria at the time the rebuttals were issued instantaneously and replied and claimed not to have seen the rebuttals before their publication. Governor Obiano, on the other hand, was totally embarrassed.”

“He said to me, this is not my language. I could not have gone this far. I was prepared to discipline my staff until they presented a defence of the Imo governor’s writing but they did not bother to contact me before writing those things. They felt they were doing me a favour. He said how could I discuss my colleague in that manner and two wrongs don’t make a right. So, in the circumstance, he made a phone call to Governor Okorocha and they both discussed and put it behind them. And they have both respected my plea for an injunction that this matter should not go ahead and that has happened. We are planning to have a meeting of all the South-East governors soonest where we will all meet and discuss the basis of how we will move forward.”

– Culled from VANGUARD