By FRED ITUAH, Abuja

Association of Ebonyi State Indigenes in the Diaspora (AESID), has described as unfortunate and disappointing comments credited to the state governor, David Nweze Umahi, wherein he expressed a wish for God to give Nigeria another President like Muhammadu Buhari as his successor in 2023.

The group demanded that the governor should apologise to Nigerians. In a statement signed on Monday by its President, Paschal Oluchukwu, said from indication, the governor made the statement out of sycophancy and bootlicking.

Umahi was reported to have made the statement while addressing State House correspondents after an official visit to the President at the Presidential villa, Abuja recently.

The Ebonyi indigenes, however said:

“It was not surprising to us and the rest of reasonable Ebonyians that the said comments and wish attracted the kinds of umbrage of negative reactions from various segments of the Nigerian public who have worn the Buhari shoe in the last six years and therefore know where it truly pinches them. Any wonder many have attributed the sad comments as one coming from a leader seeking political survival.

“First is that we may even wish to clarify that Umahi is rather seeking for political protection from the centre having lost touch with realities and his people. We have been drumming it that in the first instance, Umahi’s uncontrollable greed with it’s attendant primitive acquisition of wealth mainly by deliberate amassing of public funds led him to join the ruling party in order to avoid being harassed or threatened by the party which has severally been accused of using anti-graft agencies to intimidate and harass opposition leaders.

“The welter of reactions and condemnations that has so far greeted Umahi’s weird desire for another President like Buhari- a man who has pillaged the Nigerian economy to almost beyond redemption, promoted ethnicity and hatred, perculiarly for the Igbos whom Umahi pretends to lead as the Chairman of the South East Governors Forum amidst the worrisome insecurity, fears and unbridled apprehensions Nigerians have been daily made to live in by a Buhari Government that had vowed to end Boko Haram in just a matter of months upon ascension to power in 2015 proves the unpopularity of both the government and it’s fading bootlIckers cum sycophantic obsequious conformists which has become an art for Umahi and his few co-travellers.

“It is utterly saddening but not very surprising that the comment is coming from the Governor of a State like Ebonyi whose sad economic realities shows it has remained the poorest in every indices of human capital development in the entire Southern Nigeria.

“Yet, Umahi in his customary effing is desperately busy ass-licking the North with a vague promise that he would be made to occupy Nigeria’s seat of power in 2023. Ironically, this sad comment, which we believe is not really borne out of Umahi’s lack of understanding of the realities of the pains of the Nigerian masses but rather buttresses how sycophantic Umahi is as a leader, preferring to live consistently in a fool’s paradise just to curry favour and continue in his blind pursuit of ambition.

“With his shocking excellent assessment of Buhari’s government, Nigerians can now see that Umahi cannot really be any better than the man he idolises amidst the lack and endemic cum anthropogeni poverty that both the government at the centre and in Ebonyi has created. This alone should bring to an end his jamboree pursuit (on behalf of Igbos as he often feigns) of a Presidential ambition.”

While expressing disappointment and demanding a retraction by the governor, the group said Ebonyi state people can no longer stomach the shame of such “unguarded comments.”

“We at AESID which has remained a frontline advocacy group just like the rest of reasonable Ebonyians are ashamed of the Governor’s weird comments and hereby demands he withdraws same with profuse apologies; first to Ebonyians and then, the generality of Nigerians within 48 hours. Else, we don’t see how he can be exonerated from the plights the Buhari government has made our Igbo brothers and sisters suffer, including the security threats, harassments and intimidations which our South East Region has suffered under Buhari’s administration.

“We conclude by reiterating our belief that this should happen first and foremost before he proceeds for a psychiatric evaluation as rightly recommended by Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike,” they added. (Daily Sun)

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