Concentrate on Ministerial Work, Leave Ebonyi South Senate Seat Alone, Okorie Chides Ex Gov Umahi

The Labour Party (LP) Senatorial candidate for Ebonyi South, Hon. Linus Okorie has advised the minister for works and former governor of Ebonyi State,  Chief David Umahi to concentrate of his new job as minister for works and stop meddling in the affairs of the Senate seat of the district.

In a statement issued on Sunday,  the former 2-term member of the House of Representatives said that “the increasing belligerence of David Umahi, Minister of Works, over the Ebonyi South Senatorial Seat, which he resigned from and is still the subject of litigation; beats every imagination. It is tending to malignant desperation.”

FACTSHEET reported that the Ebonyi State National and State Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja had on Friday dismissed the petitions filed against the declaration of Umahi as the winner of the February 25 National Assembly Election by Hon. Okorie, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Michael Amah Nnachi and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate,  Sir Ifeanyi Eleje.

The tribunal dismissed the Petitions despite a confirmed allegations that the former governor forged INEC BVAS report to support his claims at the tribunal.

Speaking further,  Hon. Okorie said:

“While I cannot comment on how and why he should insist on running the affairs of the state chapter of the APC as part of his ministerial portfolio, it bears emphasizing that he lacks the locus to assign or reassign the Ebonyi South Senatorial seat as a “friends and family” asset.

“”The Labour Party and I have already mandated our legal teams to appeal the tribunal judgement that curiously dismissed our petitions; hence no fresh elections are in view unless, and until, the court of appeal so decides.

“It is, therefore, beats every imagination why Umahi is desperately intimidating everyone into surrendering a public position to his convulated whims and caprices; as if it were a personal estate.

“In addition to publicly upbraiding his own state party chairman and overruling his expressed party position on the matter, Umahi went ahead to pronounce his absolute right to zone and produce who replaces him from his party; thus shutting out even the state governor who is the their state party leader, in any such process. He was also reported to have gone further, a day earlier in Abia State, to introd9uce a close female aide as the next senator of Ebonyi South. This is even as his immediate younger brother, Austin Umahi, already commenced public campaigns for the same seat even before the tribunal judgement. The overarching excesses are indeed too many to recount; but the question is why such hasty exasperation.

“One would have expected that given the enormity of the problems in and expectations from the Ministry Works that he now superintends as Minister, Umahi will focus all his energy and time on delivering good roads to Nigerians and leave Ebonyi South District alone. That is where the President, his party and the entire nation are looking up him to conquer and deliver, even in his whimsical arbitrariness of autocracy.

“I urge all compatriots of Ebonyi South to ignore these exuberant excesses of the Minister and focus on what is best for the zone. Afterall, the ultimate decision resides with them in the event the court of appeal orders a rerun of the senatorial election.