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Umahi’s defection to APC backfires, abandoned by allies
BY NICHOLAS ABE
Ebonyi State governor, David Umahi’s defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) may have backfired as critical People’s Democratic Party (PDP) stakeholders he had planned to jump ship with him have backtracked.
Umahi, Sunday night revealed that the plan behind his defection was for the former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, and other leaders of the PDP to join him in APC two weeks after he must have successfully defected.
He disclosed this while addressing APC stakeholders at a meeting in Abakaliki and noted that Anyim backed out of the plan because he (Umahi) went to see President Muhammadu Buhari ahead of the defection plan.
The former PDP governor said he consulted all the National Assembly members and elders from the state over his defection to APC, claiming all of them approved his move and even agreed to subsequently defect with him.
He said the only grievance of the NASS members and other leaders was that he joined APC before them, revealing that they actually wanted to join APC before him.
“They were planning to ambush me, but it is difficult to catch the air,” he said.
In a communique issued after the meeting, the stakeholders and elders of the state noted that the decision to join was in the best interest of the South East as it will once again launch Ndigbo to the centre- stage of national politics.
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Part of the communique reads: “That we consider the decision as a bold step towards mainstreaming with the party at the centre to savour the full complements of the Nation’s dividends of democracy for the good of Ebonyi State and the prosperity of her inhabitants.
“That we uphold the move to join the party at the centre as a decision in the best interest of South East, which shall once again launch Ndigbo to the centre-stage of national politics. We believe that those who are castigating this arrangement today will in the future praise the foresightedness and forthrightness that informed this bold decision to the mainstream with the party of national unity.
“That we are worried by the alarm raised by the Governor of Ebonyi State, His Excellency Engr. Chief David Nweze Umahi on the plot of some politicians to unleash terror and destabilise the security of the state and therefore reiterate that as stakeholders and elders of the state, we cannot fold our hands and watch the state go into flames again after the hard-earned peace and harmony we achieved under the present administration.
“That we recount the killings and wanton destruction of property in the state between 2000 and 2006, especially the Ishielu killings, Ivo Killings, and the brazen destruction of property orchestrated by some highly placed politicians which left Ebonyi state into a monumental socio-economic disaster.
“That as stakeholders and elders, we are constrained to warn that we will never again allow such evil to befall the state.”