Governor David Nweze Umahi of Ebonyi State, on Tuesday, officially decamped to the All Progressives Congress, APC from People’s Democratic Party, a party he ran for Governorship Election two times and won.
As a journalist, it didn’t come as a surprise to me because Umahi has always maintained that he is 100 percent APC and 100 percent PDP.
Early this year, Governor Umahi warned all his Political Appointees never to talk bad about President Muhammadu Buhari.
He threatened to sack any Aide that talk bad about President Buhari. He noted that he wants to focus on good governance and never to talk about 2023 General elections. How come Umahi is the first to start decamping to APC instead of focusing on governing Ebonyi like he always said!.
In his broadcast which I personally monitored, Umahi claimed that he is decamping to APC because PDP has done injustice to the people of South-East.
In his words……. ” I offered this movement as a protest against the injustice being done to southeast by PDP. That since 1998, 1999, the southeast people have supported PDP in all elections. At a time, the five states were all PDP and one of the founding members of PDP is from southeast, the late Vice President, His Excellency, Dr.Alex Ekwueme. And so, it is absurd that from 1998 going to 2023, the southeast will never be considered to run for Presidency under the ticket of PDP, this is absurd. And this is my position and will continue to be my position.”
This is the only Umahi’s statement which got me surprised among all the things he said yesterday during his broadcast geared towards informing Ebonyians that he has moved to APC.
Let’s critically look at the party (PDP) which Umahi claimed that did injustice to the South East.
In 16 years of PDP as the ruling party in Nigeria, the Igbos held several positions which include,
INEC chairman
CBN Governor
Inspector General of Police
Army Chief of Staff.
VP slot in 2019
Senate Presidents for 8yrs
Deputy Senate President for 12yrs
Deputy Speaker
SGF
Top Ministers.
ETC
How come APC never found any Igbo man worthy to hold any of the above positions since becoming the ruling party in Nigeria?
This is because Umahi once described APC leaders as failures. There is no doubt that APC leaders have failed in all ramifications since coming to power.
Umahi said : “Mr. President or any APC person has never asked me to come to APC, and they will never ask me. And there is no reason for me to leave my party, PDP, of which I was the party chairman, deputy governor and now governor”.
“I have always insisted in character. People that jump from one party to the other should examine their characters, except if there is any problem within your party. As for today, till tomorrow until Christ comes, there is no crisis in PDP.”
“Even if there is a need for me to leave PDP, I can never leave PDP to the kind of APC in Ebonyi state because with the kind of leaders in Ebonyi APC, leaders that have failed Ebonyi state, I can never be on the same political platform with them.”
In conclusion, if there is any party that has done injustice to the people of South East. It’s actually not PDP.
However, Umahi has not totally left PDP for APC. He will still come back to PDP. Yes, Umahi will still return to PDP. Save this somewhere.
His defection hasn’t charged anything in PDP because all the Senators, and five lawmakers are still in PDP which he has not been able to convince them to decamp with him. All the State House of Assembly members are still in PDP and not even all of them are willing to decamp to APC.
The only thing Umahi has succeeded in doing is the creation of two strong political parties in Ebonyi State because 2023 elections in Ebonyi will no longer be uhuru for PDP in Ebonyi State.
(Wisdom Nwedene is a seasoned journalist, writer and editor. Contact : [email protected]).
