ABAKALIKI — The Minister of Works and former governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, has declared that the people of Ebonyi will officially adopt President Bola Tinubu as their sole presidential candidate for the 2027 elections this coming Monday, June 15.
Speaking in the state capital, Abakaliki, on Saturday, Umahi firmly distanced the state from the “Obidient” political movement aligned with Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), describing the movement’s past regional influence as an “accident of history” that will not be repeated.
The minister made these remarks while addressing a team of editors and journalists currently on a fact-finding tour of federal and state projects across the five South-East states: Ebonyi, Abia, Anambra, Enugu, and Imo.
“When we talk about the gains of the people of the South-East under President Bola Tinubu, some people who do not understand what we are talking about would continue to demarket us,” Umahi stated. “But the South-East people are very appreciative of President Bola Tinubu, and I think by Monday, under the leadership of the governor of Ebonyi, we are going to demonstrate it when we adopt the President as our sole candidate.”
Umahi was emphatic that Ebonyi State’s political future is firmly aligned with the current administration in order to drive regional development.
“Let it be known that Ebonyi State is not ‘Obidient’ because we want to catch up with the rest of the country, and we will never be ‘Obidient’,” he said. “What happened before was an accident of history. It will not repeat itself.”
Rebutting Claims of Abandoned Projects
During the briefing, Umahi strongly pushed back against allegations that the federal government has abandoned infrastructural projects in the South-East. To counter this, the minister rolled out figures detailing high-value, ongoing legacy projects initiated by the Tinubu administration in the region.
Among the major investments highlighted were:
- A ₦444 billion highway project running from Calabar to the Benue border, designed to link with the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, which Umahi noted is being 50% funded by the President.
- A ₦196 billion Dangote-backed project on the trans-Sahara route, passing through Abia and Okigwe, and terminating at the Port Harcourt-Enugu federal highway.
- The ₦65 billion Ndibe Beach development project.
- The ₦183 billion Enugu-Abakaliki boundary road, spanning 118 kilometers.
“Are these abandonments?” Umahi asked the journalists, emphasizing that these examples represent just a fraction of the work actively progressing in Ebonyi State alone.
‘Ebonyi Never Had a Federal Project in the Past’
Drawing on his extensive political background in the state, Umahi claimed that prior to the current administration, Ebonyi had been entirely neglected at the federal level.
“In the past, Ebonyi never had any federal project. I was party chairman for five years; I was deputy governor for four years. I was governor for eight years, I never saw any federal government [presence] in Ebonyi State,” he noted.
Closing his address, the minister doubled down on the state’s impending endorsement of the President, declaring, “So, we have every reason to be ‘dis-Obidient’ in obedience to President Bola Tinubu. Him and him alone.”
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