By David Lawani
The Association of Ebonyi State Indigenes in the Diaspora (AESID) has taken a swipe on Governor David Umahi for “praying and wishing for God to give Nigeria another president like Muhammadu Buhari as his successor in 2023.”
The group said rather than celebrating the president, the governor should tender an apology to Nigerians.
In a statement made available yesterday by its president, Paschal Oluchukwu, the group noted that from indications, the governor made the statement out of sycophancy and bootlicking.
Umahi was reported to have made the statement while addressing state house correspondents shortly after an official visit to the Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The group, however, said, “It was not surprising to us, and the rest of reasonable Ebonyians, about the said comments which 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.
“No 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 center and has lost touch with realities and his people.
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“We have been drumming it that, in the first instance, Umahi’s uncontrollable greed with its the attendant primitive acquisition of wealth mainly by deliberate amassing of public funds led him to join the ruling party 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 have 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, peculiarly for the Igbos whom Umahi pretends to lead as the Chairman of the Southeast Governors Forum, amidst the worrisome insecurity, fears and unbridled apprehensions Nigerians have been daily made to live by a Buhari Government.”
