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… Says Alex Otti, all the South East governors working for Tinubu
… He insists Abaribe will not return to the Senate
An All Progressives Congress (APC) senator aspirant from Abia South, Prince Paul Ikonne, has rejected the promise of a four-year term by former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, saying when the time is ripe in the South-East to produce a president, it will be for eight years as other regions have done.
Ikonne, a former Executive Secretary of the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA), earlier this week launched a grassroots group in Abia State, Asiwaju Tsunami 2027, to mobilize massive support and votes for the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the South East.
The APC leader, who described Tinubu’s victory as a wind in 2023, said the President’s re-election in 2027 will be a tsunami, not only in the South East but across the country.
Speaking during an interactive media meeting on Thursday in Abuja, Prince Ikonne disclosed that all governors in the South East, including Alex Otti of Abia State, all major political stakeholders in Igbo land, are currently behind the re-election of President Tinubu in 2027.
According to him, the Asiwaju 2027 Tsunami group is to let the world, especially Nigerians, know that what they saw in 2023 was a wind, but this 2027 election will be a Tsunami for the president.
He said: “Why would he (Peter Obi) come and say he wants to be president for four years? So he is trying to disenfranchise the people of the South East when other areas are doing eight years. No man from the South East will vote for such a thing. No, not at all.”
“We are not looking for a president who will only be there for four years. We want to produce, when the time comes, the Igbo president who will be there for eight years.”
... The strategy of governor Speranza Uzodimma
He further disclosed that the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, has created a team, of which he is a member, to sensitize Igbos across the country, shop by shop, market by market, mobilizing support for the re-election of the President, adding that the massive votes Tinubu will get in 2027 will come from all places where Igbos reside and not just in the Eastern Region.
“So the Igbos will not make this mistake and we will not fool ourselves into saying that people will only come for four years, to do what exactly? It may take (Obi) two years to appoint his ministers. By the time they finish taking him around the Villa, finish meeting the Permanent Secretaries and all that, four years will have passed.”
… Alex Otti, other governors working for Tinubu
When asked to ensure that the South East governors are with President Tinubu, Ikonne said: “A clear indication is that when the governor who came to govern through the Labor Party now supports the President, that means the President has no opposition in Abia State. So this is a clear assurance.
“Again, I think I have seen what is happening in terms of development in the South East and the kind of resources that the president has left in the hands of governors. So people now know that with the president’s mentality of allowing funds to go directly to governors, he has good intentions for Nigerians.
He wants democracy, he wants the dividends of democracy to come from the bottom up, which is what it should be.
Development does not come from the national level, it should come from the state and local government and the President has transferred resources to governors to implement development projects that will impact the lives of the people.
“So Abians are ready to vote for the President again because there will be no opposing party in Abia state.
And I am sure Abia traders are thrilled to have the President back for the second time.”
Responding to the recent zoning of the presidential ticket to the South by the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Ikonne said: “What they just said is that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu should complete his eight years, because the North has completed eight years.
“If they (NDC) have zoned it to the North, then now you say, okay, there is competition, there are questions, there is a decision that a zone should not be zoned. But the fact that they say they have zoned their ticket to the South means that they are confirming that Asiwaju should conclude and complete his eight years, which is what has been the practice since democracy began in Nigeria.
“So in 2023 there was wind, but in 2027 Asiwaju will come with the tsunami. And you can see that all the governors of the south-eastern states support the president. In the 2027 elections, now you see that there will be no governor from the south-east who will not support the president. That was not the case in 2023. So the tsunami that will hit Nigeria will start from the south-east, especially from Abia South Senatorial District.
… Abia South voters reject Abaribe
On his plan to succeed Senator Abaribe in Abia South, the APC leader said voters have decided that Abaribe should not be re-elected in 2027, having spent almost 20 years in the Senate with no development projects in the district to show for the long tenure.
“Senator Abaribe’s abandonment of Peter Obi is a clear indication that what happened in the 2023 general elections will not be repeated in the South East. Firstly, this shows that Peter Obi will no longer have that kind of wave that happened in 2023. The Labor Party is not really present in Abia State.
“So, the Labor Party has been in one crisis or another, trying to get out of that crisis, you cannot say that a party that is struggling to resolve the internal crisis is down. The local government elections in Abia were conducted using the ZLP, not the Labor Party. So to this day, the local government elected officials in Abia are all in ZLP, they have not withdrawn, as far as I know.
“Senator Abaribe is already on his way home. He has been in the Senate for 20 years and there is nothing to prove. You will not go anywhere and you will see no electoral project in the whole of Abia South.”
“It is interesting to note that Abia South is the driving center of Abia State and by extension the South East because Aba is the commercial nerve center for the South East. Abia South is also the oil producing area of Abia State. Yet there is nothing to show for it. So he is already on his way home. People are preparing to welcome him home and some groups of people are pushing for him to be given a traditional title to take control of a community in his local government.
“So I’ll be very happy, so excited to see him compete against me from the Labor Party. Don’t forget he lost a lot of credibility by controversially going from the APGA to the ADC or something like that, then from the ADC now to the Labor Party. So that tells you he’s on his way out.”
