I HAVE RIGHT TO CHOOSE MY REPLACEMENT IN SENATE- UMAHI, LP CANDIDATE REPLIES.(PHOTO).

I Have Right To Choose My Replacement In Senate — Umahi, LP Candidate Replies

The minister of works, David Umahi, has declared that he has the right to decide his replacement as the senator representing Ebonyi South district under the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Mr Umahi left the Senate after being appointed the country’s minister of works by President Bola Tinubu.

The Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja on Sept. 8 ruled that Mr Umahi was the district’s validly elected senator after dismissing petitions from the Labour Party and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidates.

Mr Umahi declared that he had the right to determine his replacement on Saturday during his visit to Gov. Francis Nwifuru, as part of his tour of the state to inspect federal roads.

He said that he is a prominent stakeholder of the APC as only the governor ranks above him in the party in Ebonyi.

“We would ensure that the party zones the ticket to Ohaozara (his Local Government Area) and it will not leave there.

“We would discuss the issue with the governor and through him, run through the court process pending where the opposition takes us to,” he said.

The minister thanked the governor for supporting his moves to make Onyekachi Nwebonyi (APC-Ebonyi Central) replace him as the Senate deputy majority leader.

“I asked if you could facilitate the process, you did and it is currently working.

“It is not every governor that would want his subject to grow but I want to assure you of complete comfort.

“President Tinubu does not like division and be assured that you are not struggling for the party’s leadership with anyone,” he said.

Mr Umahi noted that his decision to decamp to the APC from the PDP has yielded fruits with the projection of the state in mainstream politics.

“That decision nearly took my life, my properties were burnt and I became the enemy of the entire Igbos.

“The decision fetched all of us our present position so support the governor to deepen the party in the state and South East zone,” he said.

He declared that Mr Tinubu was ordained by God to lead the country, noting that he had maintained that stance since the electioneering period.

“I urge the Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Mr Peter Obi, and other Igbo stakeholders, to support Tinubu.

“The president gave us the foremost ministerial position even when we didn’t vote well for him,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party senatorial candidate in the February 25, 2023 National Assembly Elections for Ebonyi South Zone, Linus Okorie, has knocked the Minister of Works, David Umahi, for saying he has the right to choose who will succeed him at the Senate.

This was even as he urged the former governor to spend more energy in delivering quality and durable roads to Nigerians than desperately ‘politicking’ for who will replace him at the Red Chamber.

According to the LP candidate, Okorie, on Sunday, “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.

“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”

He added, “It, therefore, beats every imagination why Umahi is desperately intimidating everyone into surrendering a public position to his convoluted 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 their state party leader, in any such process.

“He was also reported to have gone further, a day earlier in Abia State, to introduce 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 and expectations from the Ministry of 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 to 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. After all, the ultimate decision resides with them in the event the court of appeal orders a rerun of the senatorial election.”