By PETER ANOSIKE

A chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Nelson Ahamefula Akuma, has expressed shock and surprise over some of the statements that the Works Minister Dave Umahi made recently.

Recall that Engr. Umahi had on Sunday urged southeast politicians to drop their presidential ambitions and rally behind President Bola Tinubu for re-election.

The Minister also dismissed claims of marginalization by the south east and northwest zones under the administration of Bola Tinubu as political.

Speaking while reacting to the statements, Akuma said that the positions of the minister were far from the reality.

On the issue of Southeast politicians dropping their presidential ambitions and rallying behind Bola Tinubu, he said that he wondered what informed the Minister’s position since the southwest has had eight years of presidency under Olusegun Obasanjo, eight years of Vice Presidency under Yemi Osibajo and now another person in the person of Bola Ahmed Tinubu from the same southwest is on the saddle.

He wondered if southeast is not part of the country any more or not entitled to rule the country.

According to him, running for the office of the president or any other office is the fundamental right of every adult Nigerian and as such Umahi has no right to tell anybody not to run.

Speaking further, he said that since the dawn of the present democracy in 1999,the southeast geo-political zone is the only one in the south that is yet to produce the president of the country and wondered what has happened to the Minister’s sense of justice and fairness.

On the minister dismissing the claim of marginalization by the South-East and North-West, Akuma said that he read the speech, adding that the minister could not point at any particular project the president is executing in the South-East.

He said that the minister reeled out trillions of naira road projects going on in the North but was just silent in the southeast.

“Some of the road projects that Umahi mentioned that are going on in the North include Sokoto to Zamfara road, Zamfara to Katsina to Kaduna road, the Abuja to Kano road project, the Kano-Jigawa road project. The Kano-Jigawa road that is going up to Katsina State. There are also the Hadejia road projects.

“But he could not mentioned one single federal government road project that is going on in the south east. Then if that is not marginalization, I wonder what it is,” Akuma said.