A civil society organisation in Enugu State, Hill Top United (HTU), has warned the immediate-past governor of Enugu State, Dr. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, to be ready to part ways with his successor, Mr. Peter Mbah, in the next few weeks.

“Ex-Governor Ugwuanyi is no longer relevant to the new Governor and, worse, he is fast becoming a liability to the reputation of the administration,” HTU chairman, Comrade Augustine Udeh, and the Publicity Director, Chief Ambrose Ozoene, observed in a statement in Enugu on Sunday, June 18, 2023.

“Ugwuanyi’s unpopularity is reflected in how he got shellacked in the February 25 National Assembly election when he ran for the Senate and was well defeated by Barrister Okey Ezeah of the Labour Party in his polling booth, in his polling unit, in his hometown and in his local government area, finally losing by 48,701 votes to Ezeah’s 69,136.”

The Hill Top United said that Ugwuanyi was no longer in a position to open the state’s vault to Mbah to prosecute his political war because he was out of office, “ thus making him become, for all practical purposes, unable to add any form of value and a persona non grata in addition”.

“Mbah has a history of use-and-dump, as most eloquently demonstrated in his relationship with a former governor of the state, Senator Chimaraoke Nnamani,” HTU added.

The CSO recalled that Senator Nnamani brought Mbah into the limelight by making him his Chief of Staff when the latter was still doing the mandatory one-year national service in Lagos in 1983 and later, the same year appointed him the Commissioner for Finance.

The group revealed that Senator Nnamani introduced Mbah to Ugwuanyi as the right person to succeed him because “Mbah can keep secrets even at gunpoint.

“In all his ubiquitous billboards throughout Enugu State, while campaigning to become the Enugu State governor, pictures of both Nnamani and Ugwuanyi were conspicuous.

“But when it became clear that Nnamani was irrelevant to his success, especially after the assassination of the Labour Party candidate in the Enugu East senatorial zone, Chief Oyibo Chukwu, who was a former Chairman of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Enugu State and was Nnamani’s main opponent in the senatorial race, Mbah had no scruples ditching him.”

In recent weeks, the former Senator has been critical of Mbah and Ugwuanyi in numerous public statements, accusing them of rigging the governorship election for their Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but refusing to include him in the rigging arrangement.

If Mbah could dump Nnamani, said the CSO, “it is easily predictable that it is a matter of time for him to discard Ugwuanyi, a governor with no achievements and a governor who has become a byword for ineptitude and administrative inertia.

“Ugwuanyi should, therefore, be ready to part ways with the new governor in a matter of days, if not weeks.

“We don’t want you to be taken unawares, which can lead to a heart attack or a stroke,” HTU concluded.