Recall that Governor Umahi had on Tuesday met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Aso Rock Villa and afterwards revealed his intent to succeed him.

AESID’s President, Paschal Oluchukwu, in a statement said it got with mixed feelings the news that the guv declared his intent to contest for presidency, saying he must give stewardship of his seven years in the state.

According to Oluchukwu, Nigeria won’t make it through a week under the “dictatorship style of governor Umahi” as president.

He said, “How has he secured our small Ebonyi State with the constant and reported attacks and communal clashes recorded under his administration, some of which are allegedly sustained even by his political appointees.

“As we speak, thousands who were displaced by common war in Effium, Ohaukwu Local Government Area of the state are yet to go back to their ancestral homes, needless to mention getting any succour whatsoever from the Umahi administration.

“The thousands of victims who were likewise displaced in 3 neighborhoods in Ezza North LGA where he is lavishing public funds in constructing a worldwide cargo airport stay displaced as they are yet to be duly compensated by the Umahi administration. Cravings and hardship have been weaponised by his federal government such that all may concern ask for crumbs on his table.

“Any marvel Ebonyi is now formally rated the poverty capital of entire Southern Nigeria by the National Bureau of Statistics.

“With the way and manner he has dealt with the state’s House of Assembly which is normally a different arm of government, are we not specific that a National Assembly under an Umahi presidency would be worse than the present rubber-stamp legislative arm that we have in Nigeria? Will Nigeria truly endure just a one-week reign of a dictator like Umahi?

“AESID would wish to ask; which impact and mark has Governor Umahi made in Ebonyi’s crucial sectors such as education- given we are categorized as educationally-less-developed, health-given our poor maternal death rate and agriculture-given our rich capacities in this sector? What about the state’s civil service he has left in its shadows, including lecturers in our State-owned tertiary institutions whose wages he has kept and pays any pittance he seems like? Is it the retirees a few of whom have died in their pains and agonies over non-payment of their due privileges or their sorrowing relatives that would drum support for Umahi’s touted 2023 presidential aspiration?

“Mysterious deaths such as the sudden ‘disappearance’ of some five NELAN professionals at some point in November in 2015 to name a few cases of suspicious deaths all indicate the supposed diabolic and wicked level the federal government has entered its transactions with the now beleaguered Ebonyi masses.

“Rather than offer jobs for our bursting populace, what the Umahi federal government specialises on is to designate, through proxies, our lively youths who daily sing its praises on the social media for some pittance.

“For this honorable responsibility platform in specific, for that reason, our company believe it is time for him to be held to account for the little chance he has had in simply one, out of an overall of the 36 states of the federation that he now aspires to pilot their affairs.”

ToriNG