The Association of Ebonyi Indigenes Socio-Cultural in Diaspora (AEISCID), a socio-cultural organisation with interest in politics and governance of the state, has described as “utmost disappointment, the disgusting and unfortunate diatribes of Ebonyi State Governor, Engr. David Umahi against the leadership of Ohaneze Ndigbo” after his lost at the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary election.
Umahi had reportedly said Ebonyi people won’t vote for Peter Obi or any other presidential candidate in 2023 general elections but Bola Tinubu of the APC.
The Ebonyi governor got a paltry 38 votes from delegates of state at the recent APC presidential primary election.
But reacting to Umahi’s comments where he attacked the leadership of the Ohaneze Ndigbo, AEISCID through a statement released in Abuja, Tuesday by its President worldwide, Ambassador Pascal Oluchchukwu, asked all the eligible voters in the state to ignore the governor and go ahead to vote their conscience in 2023.
Oluchukwu said: “Ebonyi people should therefore disregard his utter gibberish and be ready to elect candidates based on their pedigrees and credentials, competence and capacity across all levels in the 2023 general elections!
“AEISCID will always be there to make informed comments and opinions on who and which candidate will be capable to restore and redeem our lost image and rescue our beloved State from the clutches of Umahi’s tyranny.
“In the most bizarre manner, Umahi proclaimed that Ohaneze Ndigbo President, Prof. George Obiozor was no longer his President and that he wouldn’t have anything in common with the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization.
“In another worrisome media statement credited to the Governor, Umahi had in a near public threat waggishly thundered that Ebonyians will only vote APC’s Presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu and all APC candidates in the 2023 elections. As in the days of the infamous Roman Emperors in the first Century who often centralized authority only in their own hands using the dual control strategy, Umahi’s dictatorship has so grown that he now assumes Ebonyi and by extension, Igbo nation to be an instrument under his imperial peerage.
“Even the PDP that provided him the tallest ladder to power and the men who were behind that have all been thrown under the bus by a rapaciously greedy and selfish Governor Umahi. In November 2020 when he defected to the APC thinking he would have coerced Ebonyians to sink the PDP boat in the State and follow him, Umahi boasted that his mission was to actualise the Igbo Presidency and he has severally mentioned it in the media that he would be in sever pains if the APC fails to give an Igbo man its Presidential ticket.
“How the Uburu butterfly began to assume himself a bird is unimaginable to this noble association. But now that he has tested his unpopularity and eaten from his own poisoned chalice of the betrayals that is Nigeria’s national politics, Umahi should be advised to lick his wounds in silence and not try to create a bad blood between Ebonyians and their loving Igbo brothers.
“He has in the first instance never been seen to genuinely or even pretentiously fight any Igbo cause needless to talk of assuming he would be rallied round as an Igbo Presidential material. Igbos know their own and those who love them. And it is certainly not those fighting against their collective interests and agenda who would sell them out to their enemies like an Umahi who even denies his true identity.
“The vociferous threat that Ebonyians will vote his APC and not any other candidate is one of the most undemocratic assertions that chiefly points at how much of a Lord Manor he assumes to have become in Ebonyi with his prebendal survivalist politics. Only a man who suffers serial inferiority complexities like Umahi would want to force his choice of Tinubu on Ebonyians and we dare that he would never succeed.”
Speaking on what Umahi termed betrayal in Igbo land, Oluchukwu said: When we watched and read Umahi lament in frustration about what he termed betrayal from his Igbo brothers at the APC primaries, AEISCID the world over, actually wondered if his frustration was not degenerating into depression.
“Umahi, as many would know is a man whose political life and records is laddened with serial betrayals beginning from his entry into Nigeria’s political murky waters to his meteoric rise to the exalted position of a State Governor yet on the betrayal of his erstwhile boss and predecessor, Chief Martin Elechi. This is a man whose betrayal records in Nigeria’s politics are most unprecedented in history. It is on record that his word has never been his bond in both business and politics as self preservation and self-centeredness is often at the epicentre of virtually all his political antecedents and decisions.
“His betrayal records are clear and verifiable that in 1999, he was the first to betray in Ebonyi politics when he dumped his elder brother, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu who had drafted him from Portharcourt to assist in his Governorship campaign council and worked for his opponent, Dr. Sam Egwu who eventually emerged the first Civilian Governor of Ebonyi State. In 2007, it is on record that he, Umahi still betrayed the same Dr. Onu for the second time by working for the victory of Chief Elechi in 2007 against his brother- a development that had angered some youths from his Uburu village into burning down his property and consequently ‘banishing’ him.
“It was in order to compensate him for the ignoble betrayal role he played in his emergence as Governor that Elechi unilaterally imposed him as the State’s PDP Chairman and later made him a running mate in 2011 while empowering him with several contract awards. Three years after when Elechi’s succession plans topped gear, Umahi was the very first to betray his choice of Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu as his preferred successor. We recall that he had while pretending not to be interested in the pursuit of his gubernatorial ambition any longer pressurized Elechi to pay him back all he was owed in contracts so he can peacefully retire with same.
“As soon as he was paid, Umahi made a u-turn and rushed to PDP’s Waddata plaza where his already-established contacts helped him reach out to the Presidency which assisted him plot a comprehensive hijack of the Party against Elechi. That was how he emerged Governor in the first place after cutting deals with some Anambra business moguls that funded him. Today, he has betrayed all of those who held the ladder for him to climb to power. He had since betrayed many confidential cause and moves even within the PDP hierarchy and publicly boasted that he was 100% APC and 100% PDP.
“How about the thousands of civil servants in Ebonyi who were also betrayed by Umahi after he promised them a humongous 100% increase in their salaries and emoluments? Immediately he was sworn in to office, a very unfaithful Umahi told the workers that he is not God that makes and fulfills promises. And what also about the promises he made to various communities during his campaigns in 2015 and 2019 that has remained unfulfilled? Did he not also betray the youths who he promised to pay N1m each after the EndSARS imbroglio who are still demanding he fulfills his promise? Where he has left majority of the people that worked for and assisted him rise to power? We maintain that if betrayal was a Course to be studied in School, Umahi would be Dean of Studies!”
