It’ll be foolish for anybody not to back Obi, S-East govs not against him —Gov Ikpeazu

Abia State governor, Okezie Ikpeazu has described as a lie, reports that South East governors and leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are not in support of Peter Obi’s nomination as the running mate to the party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, for the 2019 election.

The governor said that it will be “foolhardy for anybody not to queue behind a man” like Obi to have him continue to serve the country to the best of his ability.

Obi, a former governor of Anambra State was recently chosen by Atiku as his running mate, but South-East governors and some leaders of the party in the region kicked, that they were not consulted before his selection.

But speaking during an interview with newsmen in Aba when Obi visited the state over the pipeline explosion in Osisioma Ngwa council, Ikpeazu denied the report and described Obi as a worthy son of Igbo land and a gift from the people to Nigeria.

“It is a lie that South East governors and Igbo political leaders in PDP are opposed to Peter Obi as vice presidential candidate. Let me use this opportunity to congratulate our brother and a worthy son of Igbo land for his nomination. He’s a gift from Ndigbo to this country. His works and pedigree bears eloquent testimony of the Igbo DNA.

“It will be foolhardy for anybody not to queue behind a man like this to continue to serve this country to the best of his ability. What the South East governors said was that we expect our candidate to come back from his trip and have a tete-a-tete with us and he has said he will come to speak with us.

“If we are banking on the eleven million Igbos in the diaspora to vote, it is only Mr. Peter Obi that can get them to do so,” Ikpeazu said.

Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, who also spoke to newsmen on the nomination said, “As the chairman of South East Senate caucus of the National Assembly, I can say that the whole National Assembly is behind Peter Obi and at no time was there any problem about his nomination as running mate to our presidential candidate.

“We need people who will not see subsidy and call it under recovery.”

Obi said in his response,  ”We in the South East have never been divided and we have never acted against each other.  We have always acted as a team. I’ve spoken with the three PDP governors. The governors and the leaders are my own leaders. Since this wrong insinuation started, I’ve consulted governors Umahi, Ugwuanyi and of course today, I’m here with my brother, Ikpeazu.

“I’ve spoken to Senator Ike Ekweremadu, one of our leaders. Of course, Senator Abaribe is here with me. I’ve spoken with all of them including Sam Egwu. For us, we are going to work like a team. For us what is important is to rebuild Nigeria and rebuild the South East.”

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The vice presidential candidate of the PDP commiserated with victims of the last weekend’s pipeline explosion in Abia which claimed scores of lives and left many injured.

He said he was directed by Atiku to “come to Abia State to commiserate with Abia people on the fire incident in Osisioma. He asked me to see you, see the site of the incident and be able to contribute to your effort to ameliorate the suffering of the victims. What happened has happened. That is one of the problems in Nigeria.

“Nigeria is not the only country that produces oil, but here from time to time, we have this type of incidents and we lost lives. I thank Abia people for the efforts to ameliorate the suffering of the victims, your efforts will not be in vain”.

It was later learnt that Atiku through his running mate during the visit donated N10 million to the victims of the pipeline fire incident that killed over 150 persons at Umuaduru and Umuimo communities in Osisioma Ngwa.

 

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