Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, has demanded the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to decide on which geopolitical zone gets the party’s 2023 presidential ticket.
The governor defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling APC a few months ago, citing injustice in the PDP, a development that sparked speculations that he was nursing a presidential ambition.
Umahi made the demand during an interview with newsmen after visiting Chairman of the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Mai Mala Buni, at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja, on Wednesday.
“It is a party affair. Party discipline requires that you sit down and discuss issues.
“You advance your reasons and another person will also advance his. And then the party as a family will take a position,” he said.
The governor also demanded the party’s top echelon to transmit more registration forms to the South East.
This, he said, followed the shortage of forms in the region in the on-going nationwide membership registration and revalidation exercise of the party.
Registration
He explained that many Nigerians in the South-East were in “mad rush” to get registered because of what he described as President Muhammadu Buhari’s giant strides in the region.
“I complained to him [Buni] that the hundreds of forms at the polling units are a far cry from what we expected.
“Everybody in South-East wants to belong to the APC.
“The ongoing registration, arrangements and logistics and the intentions are very wonderful.
“It is first class because I have never seen it in any party administration.
“So it is important I come to commend him and to also commend the staff who are working with him. This is essentially the reasons why I have come.
“You know since I joined the party in November, I have not visited the party’s National Secretariat. And so the Chairman afforded me the opportunity while he is around to visit.
“So, I visited not just because I am visiting first, but to also appreciate the beautiful work the chairman of the party, my dear brother and colleague, Governor of Yobe state is doing for our party, making it to be more digital,” he said.
