Umahi’s alleged membership of APC, a cheap blackmail – Ebonyi govt

The Ebonyi State government on Tuesday dismissed reports linking Governor David Umahi to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

In a statement issued by the state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Uchenna Orji, the government said Umahi’s membership in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) “remained unshakable.”

The governor had reportedly told people of Ishielu and Onicha local government areas of the state at a meeting in December last year that he belongs to both the APC and the PDP.

He said: “Stay in one place. Don’t run from here to here and from there to here. It does not make sense. If you say you dey there (APC), know I am already there. If you go to APC, I am an APC member. If you go to the PDP, I am there.

“I am the only person that does anti-party activities and nothing will happen.

“Any other person that does anti-party is gone. So, I am representing you in the APC while you all stay in the PDP. If you like, go and write it on social media.”

But Orji faulted the report, saying the governor was misrepresented.

He said: “In their desperate attempt to cause disaffection against the state government, they mischievously misrepresented the governor as saying ‘I am the only governor that belongs to the PDP and the APC.

“This blackmail is nothing but a cheap and childish fabrication that is irritably displeasing to the sensibilities of the ordinary man.

“It is a common sense that no party member in Nigeria can belong to another political party at a time. The governor never said that he belongs to the APC.

“He is unshakably, a PDP chieftain and has been a great party man, whose track records as historic state party chairman and currently the PDP governor and leader in Ebonyi State are known and admired by people of good will.

“The governor only said in the course of his speech that those who are in the habit of hiding under partisan politics to peddle lies against the state government were on a frolic of their own as people of different political colourations including the APC know the virtues of his administration.”

Also on Tuesday, the PDP Governors’ Forum said the report that Umahi was now a member of both the PDP and the APC was incorrect.

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In a statement by its director-general, Osaro Onaiwu, the PDP governors said:

“This is about 2023, but may we hasten to add that there are more civilised and cultured ways to go about it.

“Yes, he like every other key player in the political arena, may have his ambitions and dreams at the end of his current service, aspire for any of the offices at the Presidential Villa, which of course he is constitutionally fit and qualified for, but that will certainly be on the platform of the PDP.”

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