An uncalled-for statement like “Ebonyi will never be part of Biafra” can only come from a cheap blackmailer who believes that treachery pays. He has betrayed many Ebonyi leaders and Ebonyi youths with such grandstanding treachery that it is a matter of time for him to suffer severe consequences for his cheap treachery.

If he thinks that anyone will make him President of Nigeria for uttering such rubbish, it just shows how shallow, desperate and unreliable he is. Those people he is trying to impress with his slavishness know that the only worth of a traitor is to use and dump him.

One would have thought that the man would have acquired some sense after the attacks on many communities of his state. Instead of turning a new leaf and carrying his people along in governance, which would reduce or even eradicate agitation for Biafra and other restiveness in his state, he is issuing crazy decrees.

Does Mr Umahi not know that more Ebonyi people are involved in pro-Biafra activism than indigenes of other South-East states. It is so because he is one of South-East governors who have alienated their people the most.

It is alienation by South-East governors – including Mr Umahi, who has even alienated Ebonyi elders who made his emergence as governor possible – that gave rise to pro-Biafra agitations.

When Mr Umahi entered APC recently, we thought that he would help to win Ebonyi and other South-East states for APC in 2023.

For that reason, we spent much money of our own using radio jingles on Ebonyi Radio and Radio Nigeria to welcome him into APC.

But his famed ingratitude, abrasiveness, dishonesty, selfishness, wickedness, deceitful nature and treacherous character have kept Ebonyi stakeholders out of APC.

Even his attempt to sell APC governorship ticket to the highest bidder has so far been shunned.

APC cannot win Ebonyi State in 2023 because Umahi has eaten alone and betrayed those who could have helped him to win his state for APC.

In a way, his various outbursts – such as the one under reference – are borne out of frustration that Ebonyi people are not following him like sheep.

He failed to understand that governance is more than his doing contract with public funds. He must be wondering why Ebonyi people are not worshipping him as “King David” for building roads, flyovers, markets, new secretariat, etc.

Instead, the more projects he does, the more disconnected, discontented and alienated his people become.

When he will know how unpopular he has made himself as governor is about 6 months to the end of his tenure when his appointees (the only Ebonyi persons who pretended to follow him to APC) will abandon him.

He has absolutely no personal cult-like following in Ebonyi to speak of.

In the rest of the South-East and Nigeria, he is also considered a treacherous, selfish and wicked person who cannot be trusted.

In fact, I have heard people from outside the South-East say that they won’t support emergence of President of Nigeria of South-East extraction because our governors – particularly Mr Umahi – are treacherous and untrustworthy.

And why would they not say that when, led by Mr Umahi, the South-East governors stayed away from a meeting of Southern governors in Enugu which governors of South-West and South-South attended.

This was a meeting that took decisions on anti-open grazing, on states’ collection of VAT and on their earlier position that President Buhari’s successor in 2023 must come from the South.

On states’ collection of VAT, before the ink of the Enugu communique dried up, Mr Umahi publicly disagreed with that resolution from where he was hiding in Ebonyi!

Yet, Mr Umahi thinks that telling us that Ebonyi will never be part of Biafra, which was never an issue anywhere and at anytime, would recommend him to his fellow Southern governors?

Or perhaps he believes he can become President or Vice President without the support of his brother governors of the South!

After months of discrediting fellow South-Easterners and lobbying to become Vice President and now seeing that the next President will indeed come from the South, the only thing that Mr Umahi could come up for himself is to talk nonsense about Biafra.

People without integrity and capacity for an office resort to such blackmail and treachery. They also talk recklessly without first thinking. Sadly for Mr Umahi, his irritating style won’t work for him.

No one in his right mind will consider him for either President or Vice President. His abrasiveness is almost lunacy.

But the South-South, South-West, North-Central, North-West and North-East should not think that South-East governors are representative of the character of the South-East. They are not.

In fact, it is because they do not represent us that millions of our people – mostly youths – are protesting for Biafra. They say that those who govern us today could only become governor in Nigeria and couldn’t become governor in Biafra.

We appeal to other five geopolitical zones nor to visit the sins of our governors upon us. We have sound Igbo persons who will give Nigeria the best leadership. Look at them and not at our estranged governors who are on their own.

Dr. Chinedu Jideofo-Ogbuagu,
National Coordinator,
South-East APC Presidency Project 2023.
09052910866, 08023163451.

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