Ben Ezechime, Enugu
Dr Abdulahi Umar Ganduje, the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has assured that the party will take over the governance of Enugu State in 2027.
Ganduje said that the current Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led government in the state was in its last tenure as the APC had strategised to take over Enugu State, regarded as capital of the South-East.
Ganduje, who was represented by the Deputy National Chairman of APC, South, Chief Emma Eneukwu, said this at Akama-Oghe in Ezeagu Local Government Area at the reception for the member representing Udi/Ezeagu Federal Constituency, Chief Sunday Umeha and his entire Labour Party constituency structure.
Ganduje noted that due to excess burden placed on Nigerians living in the state, APC had vowed to displace the PDP-led government in 2027.
The national chairman also decried what he called “high taxation without human face or cinsideration” in the state especially against the poor masses.
“APC is the transformer giving light to Nigeria, even the Governor (Peter Mbah) himself, is running around begging to know if he will join APC.
“But we say no to such move, partnership or alliance. So, there is no space, so he has to leave come 2027,” he said.
Ganduje said that with Umeha’s defection from the Labour Party (LP) to APC, “he is the first elected political office holder (a Federal lawmaker) to be produced by APC in Enugu State since the inception of the party in 2014.”
“Hon Umeha, Hon Dennis Amadi, and all those that joined APC with them, including Hon Emma Ogbozo my friend, you have made the right decision. You will not be disappointed.
“You see that man that is governing Enugu State now, he has ended his reign. I can tell you reliably that he has finished his one term; the way he came is the same way he will go.
“So you have taken the right decision because you have connected yourself to the national grid, light never goes off from the national grid. So you are welcome to APC.
“We have a new governor in us, what he is doing is just waiting, he is waiting for 2027 to assume his position as the governor of Enugu State and we know his capacity; that is when people of the state will enjoy good governance.
“The taxation they are using to kill the poor people will no longer be there, there will be considerable taxation and not taxing people to kill them. So, all the people that joined APC from the Labour Party are lucky people,” he added.
In his remarks, Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Chief Uche Nnaji, commended the defectors for joining the APC.
Nnaji said, “I know that our people are suffering, the huge allocation that accrues to the state is not being used to work for the people.
“What they do is make belief; they go to newspapers and electronic media and are advertising what they did not do and claiming they have done it.
“Enugu is the first state in which a serving president commissioned an uncompleted project.
“How can they trick our father, Bola Tinubu, they took him to Government Technical College and showed him video of an uncompleted house called smart school and told him that this represents 30 of the smart schools that had been completed in Enugu State.”
The minister noted that everyone knows that at the time in question it was only one smart school that was done in Enugu State, and it is in Owo (governor’s community), the former farm settlement in Owo.
The state’s Chairman of the party, Chief Ugochukwu Agballah, said the defection of Umeha and collapse of LP structure in Udi and Ezeagu local government areas would have a profound effect in Enugu state politics.
Agballah noted that Udi and Ezeagu, otherwise known as Agbaja people, remained the heartbeat of Wawa people (people of old Enugu State including present day Ebonyi), while Enugu State is the heartbeat of South-East.
Ealier, Umeha stated that with his defection and that of others with him, the entire structure of Labour Party in his constituency, Udi/Ezeagu, had formerly shifted to APC in the state.
“We are supposed to be at the epicenter of national politics, we are supposed to be at the centre where decisions concerning Nigeria are being taken; so our journey to reconnect Enugu State to the administration at the federal level begins today,” he said.
