By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
Multiple sources are alleging that barring a last minute change of mind, Ebonyi state governor, Dave Umahi, PDP, will soon be APC’s newest governor. This Magazine was informed that the governor has, allegedly, wrapped up his defection plans to the ruling party.
Governor Umahi, an Engineer, is credited with turning Abakaliki, the state capital, from a glorified town to a sprawling modern city. His supporters say Umahi has re- invented the state by saturating it with several signature infrastructural projects since assuming office four years ago.
Speculations about his impending exit from the PDP trended thickly last year with many swearing that Umahi was going to contest his second election on the platform of the APC. However, to the surprise of many, the governor picked his PDP’s return ticket, contested and won re-election on the party’s platform.
It has, however, been gathered that the reason he stayed back in the PDP was the certainty of massive defeat that awaited him at the polls had he contested as an APC candidate.
Umahi has used every fora to lash out at those associating him with possible defection to the APC, denying ever nursing such ambition. But one of our sources alleges that Umahi has all along been marking time in the PDP.
“He is body and soul APC and he barely hides it. Forget his feeble presence at PDP events. His half-hearted campaign for the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar was very glaring. What drives his APC inclination is linked to 2023.Certain promises have been made to him by the Northern establishment and he believes the promises would be fulfilled”, the source said.
This Magazine was told that a South East billionaire businessman who has the ears of the Northern oligarchy, including President Muhammadu Buhari, is behind the alleged Umahi 2023 permutations. The businessman who is also Umahi’s friend, was said to have spoken elegantly of the Ebonyi state governor to his Northern friends, suggesting to them that in the event that APC decides to zone its 2023 presidential ticket to the South East, the governor would be the party’s best choice.
The businessman reportedly assured the Northern power brokers that with Umahi as President, the region can sleep with its two eyes closed as the governor would protect its economic and political interests to the fullest.
However, should the North insist on keeping power beyond 2023, the multi-billionaire businessman, is also making a case for Umahi as VP under an APC presidential ticket in 2023.
Governor Umahi’s chummy relationship with President Buhari, it’s alleged, has its locale in the above projections. Though an opposition governor, Umahi has routinely spoken eloquently about the President. In 2017, the Ebonyi state number one citizen emerged from a visit to President Buhari in the Presidential villa to endorse him for second term. He has also frequently joined the President on his foreign trips. He has often said he will never criticize the President.
In the height of collation of the 2019 presidential election results, Umahi was said to have easily yielded to pressure from the Aso Rock hardliners, mostly Northern elements in President Buhari’s government, bent on returning the President to office for second term at all cost. The outcome was the President’s 1/3 feat in Ebonyi state in the Presidential election. Two other South East governors- Rochas Okorocha and Victor Okezie Ikpeazu of Imo and Abia respectively, also allegedly yielded to the pressure.
Umahi would later justify the President’s good outing in his state at the polls, saying it was to correct the impression that the South East hated Buhari.
Last week, Umahi named an Institute in the Ebonyi state University after the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, a move his critics described as upping the ante of his pro-APC/ North posturing.
