Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, has joined the league of governors that have expressed their readiness to drag President Muhammadu Buhari into the 2019 electoral contest.
Speaking to State House Correspondents Thursday after a visit to the Presidential Villa, the governor who is a member of the opposition, Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) said that his best wish for the President would be for him to seek re-election in 2019.
Recall that Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State had during a similar visit to the Presidential Villa recently called on Buhari to re-contest.
The Benue governor declared that he had looked round and was unable to find any Nigerian that possessed Buhari’s level of integrity and credibility.
Only last week,Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State while speaking to correspondents at the Presidential Villa also called on Buhari to contest.
Okorocha noted, however, that there would be no automatic ticket for Buhari, adding that the President would have to slug it out with other contestants at the party’s presidential primary.
Asked if President Buhari had told him that he would contest in the next general election, Governor Umahi replied that he was merely expressing a wish.
According to him, since as a first term governor he was already warming up for a re-election, he would wish that the President did the same.
He said “Well, any first term governor would want to go for second term and what you wish yourself ,you should be honest enough to wish another person the same. Since , Mr President is doing his first term and I am doing my first term, it’s my wish to re-contest and I will as well wish the president the same to re-contest.
Umahi who said he was in the Villa to conclude discussions on President Buhari’s proposed visit to Ebonyi next week also disclosed that the state was well prepared to receive him.
The visit will be President Buhari’s first trip to the south East since assumption of office on May 29, 2015.
On the projects that the President would commission during the visit Umahi said: “We have quite a lot of projects that we have executed within this past two and the half years . We have three twin flyovers that is built across the African Transahara Road, running from Enugu to Cameron, passing through Ebonyi State, so we have to build three twin flyovers to decongest traffic on that road. Each of the twin flyover is 700 metre length. We have completed two and the third one is 80% done. Mr President will commission the two.
“We also have a mall, what we call Ebonyi Mall, that is modelled after the famous Dubai Mall. But a kind of microcosm of that microcosm. And we intend for the President to lay a foundation stone of that mall which we like Mr President to commission within the next 12 months.
“Also we are building a tunnel that dovetails into a flyover that is parallel to the existing flyover, that particular junction that is called Akani Ibiam junction , we want Mr President to lay the foundation stone and that flyover bridge will be named after Mr President and we are sure to finish that project in the next 12 months, Mr President will also come back, he will be commissioning it when he comes back for his campaigns so we will like to make them ready.”
source: leadership
