Chief Chaka Nweze, an All Progressives Congress (APC) Stalwart in Ebonyi has said that the barrage of attacks especially on the media by some Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders in Ebonyi over Governor David Umahi’s defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) is baseless, unwarranted and unfortunate.
Nweze, one of the main arrowheads that facilitated the governor’s defection to the APC said in an interview that such PDP leaders who use their media cronies in particular to unleash vituperations on the governor are misguided and should be guided properly for the state’s interest.
The APC Chieftain and a staunch supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari, said that the actions of such leaders who had occupied veritable political positions in the state in the past and presently, as unnecessarily heating the state’s polity.
“It sounds absurd and ludicrous to many discerning mind that our past leaders should cast aspersions on the governor for following his mind politically in order to liberate his people.
“Umahi is still serving his tenure and has performed creditably in terms of infrastructure and others sectors of the society more than any other leader who has governed any south east state.
Nweze, the Pioneer Secretary of the APC in the state said that instead of the aspersions, the leaders should commend and support the governor because it was crystal clear that his political course is in the state and south east’s interest.
“I can only attribute this seeming madness to envy and political decadence because these leaders have had their turns at governance in the past but could not perform at any point to what Umahi has achieved in six years.
“Infrastructurally for instance, Umahi has no rival as one can only describe what is happening in Ebonyi now as magical because the governor has elevated infrastructural development in the state to an art form.
“Many indigenes of Ebonyi who have not visited home for long miss their ways when they visit the state because the once derided Abakalki for instance, has been turned into the Dubai of Africa,
Expatiating on the infrastructural strides of the governor, Nweze the former Executive and Caretaker Chairman of Ohaozara LGA of the state (the governor’s home council) said the number of completed flyovers and those about to be completed by the governor was dumbfounding.
“I never imagined to see more than four standard, world class ‘flyovers’ completed on the main expressway in the state, the trans-Saharan Abakaliki-Enugu high way and others about to be completed on the same road.
“These are the type of flyovers with full lighting systems that cannot be seen anywhere in the country and the most baffling thing is that it is clear to all that Ebonyi is among states that collect the least allocation from the Federal Government and one therefore wonders where the governor gets the money from.
He said that time and space would not allow him fully outline the governor’s wonder in infrastructural development but it would be nice to point out that people no longer use headlamps while driving at night through the state due to the steady and aesthetically confounding street lighting system in almost all the roads in the Abakaliki and other parts of the state.
“I do not know anywhere in Nigeria where almost all the roads in the capital have been reconstructed-- majority on concrete as the most astonishing aspect is the successful relocation of traders at the Abakpa main- market Abakaliki to the ‘new-look’ International market.
“I have been involved in Ebonyi politics since its state’s creation in 1996 and I know that preceding administrations tried to effect such relocation but were unsuccessful and also astonishing is that this infrastructural feat is replicated in all the 13 Local Government Areas of the state,” he said.
The Former Vice Chairman of the state branch of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), said that the governor’s political calculation was on point as there is no way the presidency of south east extraction will be realised under the PDP even for the next 20 years.
“When push comes to shove, the Emperor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state and of the PDP in collaboration with his counterparts from the north will quickly say that PDP’s rule of 16 years was 90 per cent of the south.
“He will then assert that it is the turn of the north to produce the next president and we will be back to square one,”
He advised the leaders to quietly remain in their political abode if they were not comfortable with the governor’s decision to defect to the APC without unnecessarily heating the polity.
“The PDP has the right to feel bad over the defection of someone considered as an iroko within its fold, but its leaders and members should remember that the governor has the right to belong to any political party of his choice and at any time.
“He is not the first governor or politician to defect from one party to the other as most of those who call themselves PDP members today defected from the APC and other political parties in the country, to the PDP.
“The sort of name calling, character assassination among other anomalies on the governor from the PDP especially its leaders are distasteful as they are behaving as if the world has come to an end with Umahi leaving the party.
“The truth is however that Umahi harkened to the voice of reason and realized that the APC offers the only hope for the Igbos to end the visible political, social and economic marginalization against them, to be heard at the centre while making a deserved and timely stake at the much desired presidency of the countr."
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