Ebonyi indigenes condemn threats against opposition, back PDP

By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA: The Association of Ebonyi Indigenes Socio-Cultural in the Diaspora AEISCID has condemned what it described as a resort to threats and violence against opposition by state officials calling on President Bola Tinubu to call his party’s loyalists to order.

The group’s President, Ambassador Paschal Oluchukwu, in statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, also threw said the group has now thrown its full weight behind the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party PDP for the 2027 governorship election in Ebonyi State, while accusing Governor Francis Nwifuru of deceiving the Ezza clan with a false promise of a 2031 power handover in a bid to garner support for his second term bid.

“We condemn the resort to threats and violence on opposition by Gov. Nwifuru made during his speech at a recent rally for the endorsement of himself and the President for a second term in office at the Abakaliki Township Stadium. We beckon on President Tinubu to please call his Party’s loyalist to order as our people cannot be cowed by threats of violence. Democracy grants everyone the right and freedom to contest for his position and under no circumstances should the people face threats for exercising their franchise,” the statement read.

The statement was issued against the backdrop of two nearly simultaneous political events in Ebonyi State — an endorsement rally organised by the Ezza Elders Council at the Onueke Township Stadium in Ezza South Local Government Area, and a counter press conference held by the Umuekumenyi Leaders Council in Abakaliki.

AEISCID expressed concern over Governor Nwifuru’s absence at the Onueke rally organised in his honour, noting that he had instead sent his Deputy, Princess Patricia Obila, to represent him at the occasion of his endorsement for a second term by the people of Ezza Ezekuna worldwide.

“Nothing would have been more reassuring for the great people of Ezza Ezekuna than a physical presence at the so-called second term endorsement rally at Onueke and a consequent public promise to handover power to an Ezza man in 2031,” the group said.

Aligning itself with the position of the Umuekumenyi Leaders Council, which had endorsed the PDP’s governorship candidate for 2027, AEISCID commended the council for what it described as its “erudite wisdom and daunting courage” in making the decision.

Ebonyi has severely retrogressed in the past three years of Nwifuru’s ruinous reign without any tangible completed government project commissioned by his administration,” the group alleged.

The association alleged that the only signature project of the Nwifuru administration — the Vanco flyover and tunnel — remained uncompleted and had been “literally abandoned like a pool of Bethsaida,” adding that the government had “remained so purposeless, directionless and visionless that asking for another tenure should have been a weighty request in the mouths of both the government and its illogical supporters.”

AEISCID also dismissed Governor Nwifuru’s alleged promise to hand power to the Ezza clan in 2031 as a grand deception, urging the people of Ezza nation not to be swayed by it.

“Power, all over the world and since the history of Ebonyi State’s creation and the return of democracy has always been taken, and not given. Ezzas should therefore shine their eyes and vie to gain power like the rest of the State,” the group said.

The association further argued that the 2027 governorship contest should be determined by capacity and not zoning sentiments, describing the ruling camp’s argument of “Turn of Ndi Izhi” as unreasonable and self-serving.

“2027 should be about who has the capacity to liberate Ebonyi from the shackles of misgovernance not the unreasonable feeling of zoning entitlement,” it stated.

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