The latest political news in Nigeria is the defection of the Ebonyi state Governor, Dave Umahi, on Tuesday to the All Progressives Congress (APC), citing injustice meted on the South East by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the reason behind his action.
But the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has faulted the reason given by his Ebonyi counterpart, saying the movement was because of Umahi’s ambition to be the APC’s presidential candidate in 2023.
Governor Umahi had on Tuesday at a media briefing in Abakaliki said his decision to dump the PDP was premised on his conviction that the APC was more amenable to working in the interest of the South East zone.
Umahi, explained that he was leaving the PDP because of the injustice meted out to the people of the zone despite several years of loyalty.
However, Wike, in a statement by his Special Assistant (Media), Kelvin Ebiri, said committed members of the PDP were not surprised that Governor Umahi had formally defected to the APC, which he has been fraternising with for a while.
Governor Wike said ordinarily, he would not have been perturbed by Umahi’s decision to defect to the APC, but he felt offended by his attempt to justify his decision on the purported injustice meted on the South East by the PDP.
The Rivers State governor accused Umahi of being unfair to the PDP which gave him the governorship ticket in 2015 against all odds, and repeated the same feat in 2019.
He noted that while Umahi has a right to move to the APC, his attempt to blackmail the PDP and paint it in a bad light was mischievous and unacceptable.
“My friend, Umahi, wants to be president. There is no problem about that. You have a right to be president. Nobody can stop you. You are educated. You have been a governor for two terms, so you are qualified to say, ‘I want to be president of Nigeria.’ But that does not mean that because you want to blackmail your party, and tell lies to the people you are leaving the party because of the injustice meted against the South-East, which is not correct,” he said.
Governor Wike, who demanded that Umahi should retract the statement that the PDP has not been fair to the South-East, argued that under the PDP, the South East has produced Senate Presidents; National Vice Chairman of the PDP and Secretary to the Federal Government.
He said it was erroneous for Umahi to accuse PDP of injustice, when he had unilaterally imposed his younger brother as South-East zonal Vice Chairman of the PDP.
“In life, power is sweet, but conscience is important. It is most offensive and insulting for a man to lie against his party because of power,” he stated.
The governor said though APC has not yet told Nigerians where it will zone its presidential ticket, Umahi presumptuous move might be too hasty and will ruin him politically.
According to him, assuming the APC decides to zone its presidential ticket to the South East where the party has no formidable base, what is the guarantee that Umahi will secure the ticket.
“My reaction to Governor Umahi’s defection is not that he has no right to defect, but to say he is defecting because of injustice meted to the South East that is insulting to the South East.”
The Governor urged the National Working Committee and the National Executive Committee of the PDP to take decisive steps to ensure that PDP does not die in Ebonyi State.
