The Association of Ebonyi Indigenes in the Diaspora (AESID) said it received with mixed feelings the news that Ebonyi State Governor, David Nweze Umahi, declared his intention to contest for the presidency.
While totally rejecting Umahi’s presidential ambition, the Ebonyi indigenes said Nigeria won’t survive a week under governor Umahi as president.
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AESID said the governor should give stewardship of his seven years in the state first.
Governor Umahi had on Tuesday met with President Muhammadu Buhari and thereafter announced his intention to succeed the president.
But reacting to the development through a statement signed Thursday and made available to newsmen in Abuja, AESID’s president, Ambassador Paschal Oluchukwu, who acknowledged Umahi’s constitutional right to contest, said the governor has failed “to secure our tiny Ebonyi State with the consistent and reported attacks and communal clashes recorded under his administration…
“As we speak, thousands who were displaced by communal war in Effium, Ohaukwu Local Government Area of the state are yet to return to their ancestral homes.
“The thousands of victims who were also displaced in three communities in Ezza north LGA where he is lavishing public funds in building an International Cargo Airport remain displaced as they are yet to be duly compensated by the Umahi administration.
“Hunger and poverty has been weaponized by his government such that all might come to beg for crumbs on his table.
“Any wonder Ebonyi is now officially rated the poverty capital of entire Southern Nigeria by the National Bureau of Statistics.”
While rejecting Umahi’s presidential ambition, the group said: “With the way and manner he has handled the State’s House of Assembly which is ordinarily a separate arm of government, are we not certain that a National Assembly under an Umahi Presidency would be worse than the current rubber-stamp legislative arm that we have in Nigeria?
“AESID would wish to ask; which impact and mark has Governor Umahi made in Ebonyi’s critical sectors such as, Education- given we are classified as Educationally-Less-Developed, Health- given our poor maternal mortality rate and Agriculture-given our rich potentials in this sector?”
Although the Ebonyi group expressed reservations that the Igbos have not been fairly treated on the issue of Nigeria’s presidency, it added that “all who feel they have the right qualification shouldn’t whip up this sentiment.
“They should rather convince the electorates like it is done in saner democracies and build bridges across the Niger to enable them realize their ambition of clinching Nigeria’s Presidency.
Umahi wants to be president
Umahi spoke on his ambition on Tuesday while speaking with State House reporters after a meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said: “I told Mr President that without prejudice to whatever will be the decision of the party, which we shall abide by, that if the party throws the ticket open or zones to Southern part of Nigeria that I believe that with what I have put in place in the past six years plus, that I will be running for the presidency on the platform of the APC.
“So, I told him and of course, he believes that whoever wants to run for president of this country must have to consult widely, go to all the leaders and that we must do everything to remove ethnicity and religion in our politics so that this country can grow.”
Speaking about his chances, Umahi said: “The Bible that I swore with, a section of in 1 Samuel says that by strength shall no man prevail, and power and might belong to God.
“He chooses whomever he wills and he will do that in 2020. I’m not in a contest with anybody. I’m in a contest with myself.”
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