A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) and Director General of Voice of Nigeria (DG, VON), Osita Okechukwu, has described Governor David Umahi’s defection from Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to APC Tuesday as welcome development.
Okechukwu, while congratulating the Ebonyi State governor for making the bold move, remarked that by joining our great APC at this point in time, Umahi has activated the Zikist Eagle Alliance taking place in the Southeast geopolitical zone.
The VON DG in a statement signed Wednesday in Abuja, said: “In fact I congratulate His Excellency, David Umahi, for flying the pragmatic ZIKIST EAGLE Alliance, which governed the 1st and 2nd Republics of Nigeria. It is a welcome development, especially given that he is leading the squad of his governor colleagues and other prominent Igbo leaders to reinforce the revived Zikist North and East alliance.”
On Umahi’s declaration that PDP was very unfair to Nd’Igbo despite their years of loyalty and investment of electoral advantage on the opposition party, Okechukwu said: “I agree with the governor entirely, because if you remember that His Excellency, Dr. Alex Ekwueme of blessed memory, who was the founder of the PDP was treated shabbily.
“Apart from individual appointments, what did the Southeast get in return? Personal important appointments in the face of regrettable dilapidated physical infrastructure contributed nothing for an industrial region. But, the current APC Federal Government is carrying the cross of infrastructural development to the joy of our people.”
Okechukwu remarked that Umahi’s move will guarantee the popular agitation for Nigeria’s president of Igbo extraction, stressing that “it will more than any alchemy facilitate it, more so when he is the pilot of gale of defections we are expecting from the region to APC.”
He added: “As the chairman of Southeast Governors Forum, Umahi is opening the gate for his brother governors. Don’t forget that the Zikist Eagle alliance actually began during the build up to the 2019 presidential election. Or, how do you explain that, for the first time in the history of presidential polls, our great party, APC, exceeded the 25% threshold in three out of the five southeast states?
“Politics is a game of numbers, today Ebony has filled the void left by our loss in Edo, and tomorrow we are expecting Enugu and others. Nigerian electorate is watching the renewal of APC. Indeed, Umahi has added the missing tonic that Ndigbo so much need to migrate to the mainstream in Nigerian politics.
“I have always cautioned our people against the faulty political strategy of hanging on the opposing side, when our kindred are not only at home, but all over Nigeria making important investments most in all the nooks and crannies of our beloved country.”
