Leave Gov Umahi Alone – Chief Eze Tells PDP

MIKE ODIEGWU

A South-South founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has blasted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for its continual lamentations over the recent movement of Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, to the APC.

Eze in a statement in Port Harcourt at the weekend said it remained the exclusive preserve of every member of a political party to pitch tent with another political association especially when his genuine grievances, especially those affecting public interests were not properly addressed.

He said: “I have watched with utter disbelief and nostalgia the naked and macabre dance by some PDP bigwigs since Engr. Dave Nwaze Umahi, the Executive Governor of Ebonyi State and South East Chairman of Governors Forum decided to join forces with the ruling party at the centre, the All Progressives Congress, (APC) in order to give political direction to Ndi Igbo”.

“By his defection to the APC, Governor Umahi, has proven that he is politically ahead of his peers and especially, considering his developmental strides in turning Ebonyi State, a once neglected and underdeveloped State in Nigeria into the most developed State in the country.”

Eze said the infrastructural revolution ignited by Umahi in Ebonyi was a critical tool and determinant factor in governance and justified his defection from the PDP to the progressives family.

He observed that Umahi’s defection led to blabbing of misguided leaders of the PDP, who resorted to acts of ill will to distract the Governor from his determination to make the difference in governance.

The party stalwart said the defection of Umahi created vacuum in PDP as the party seemed to have lost relevance and direction.

Eze said: “The latest and most laughable of all the lamentations is the one that came from one funny but the irrelevant fellow who claims to be the Publicity Secretary of the collapsed PDP in Ebonyi State, Mr. Silas Onu, who attempted to disparage the image of Governor Umahi but only succeeded in making a fool of himself”.

“In his futile effort, he stated that the PDP is threatening to write the US, UK governments alleging that Umahi is plotting to kill some of the PDP bigwigs in the State.”

Eze condemned Fred Udogu, PDP Ebonyi Chairman, for all his futile efforts to portray the Governor in a bad light in a petition he sent to the new Commissioner of Police, Department of State Services (DSS) and other security agencies in the state because he was asked to return the vehicle given to him by the State Government.

He described all the allegations against Umahi as destitute of reality intended to distract the efforts of the Governor to provide leadership to the people of his state.

He said Umahi had no intention of harming any son or daughter of Ebonyi and called on the leaders of the PDP to go back to the drawing board and review the architectural design of the party to spot the defects and find ways of fixing and repositioning it.

He said: “If they think that the only solution to their litany of problems is to continue to raise unsubstantiated allegations against an Apostle of God, who detests campaign of calumny and all forms of actions that contradict acceptable standard of human behavior, then their efforts must be exercises in futility”.

While sympathizing with the PDP and its leadership for losing such a great asset and high ranking political leader like Umahi, Eze admonished the party to come to terms and accept the reality of the fact that the departure of Umahi from the PDP signified an imminent collapse of the party in the South East.

Eze said the PDP failed abysmally in providing answers to the genuine concerns that prompted Umahi’s exit from the party which he identified as the total neglect of the South East during her 16 years of misrule in Nigeria.

He said that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari had performed in the entire South-East by executing critical projects such as the Second Niger Bridge, the Enugu International Airport, Onitsha to Enugu Road, Port Harcourt to Enugu Road among others.

Eze applauded Umahi for his bold step which, he said earned him the poster boy of South-East politics.