It is six years since the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari came to office. In 2015, Ndigbo did not really look towards the direction of Buhari and the then newly formed APC. The South East rather voted overwhelmingly to President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP. At the time of 2015 general elections, there were three PDP governors in Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi states even as Anambra’s Dr. Peter Obi who was of APGA was clearly a PDP sympathizer while Imo was effectively an APC enclave. It must be proclaimed that en route the 2015 general elections, more than 90 per cent of the national assembly members were of PDP extraction, with more than 80 per cent representation in the respective houses of assembly.
With the above composition, and considering that the PDP led administration had, based on the general conviction of Ndigbo, pandered towards the South East in terms of appointments and project locations, the people of the area decided to go the PDP way. As it turned out, PDP lost the presidency and APC ascended into power. Since then, more and more Igbo politicians have been identifying with the broom party.
At inception, it was Chief Rochas Okorocha in Imo, Senator Chris Ngige in Anambra, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu in Ebonyi and Osita Okechukwu in Enugu. But now, APC has two senators and huge representation in the national as well as state assemblies. The party is now well represented in virtually represented in all the wards in South East states.
Commenting on what the APC and Buhari have brought to the table in the South East, the founder of APC/ UPP, Chief Chekwas Okorie noted that “No president has ever done more projects in the zone that President Buhari is currently doing. The two dual carriage ways of Onitsha – Enugu Express Road and Enugu – Umuahia- Aba – Port Harcourt are now in good shape. Visit Onitsha and Asaba and see the speed with which the much talked about Second Niger Bridge is being done. These projects were ignored by the PDP for 16 years”.
The Federal Government awarded the Main Construction Contract to Julius Berger; and funding of the project by the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund, PIDF, in August 2018 PIDF paid 33 billion Naira (US$90 million) to Julius Berger for the Second Niger Bridge project.
The former governor of Abia State and Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Orji Kalu applauded President Muhammadu Buhari for the successful reconstruction and re-opening of Akanu Ibiam International Airport (AIIA), Enugu. According to a published report, “Kalu stressed that President Buhari is committed to infrastructural development across the country, adding that the landmark projects being executed in the South East by the federal government should be applauded by Ndigbo regardless of political affiliation”.
He added, “The economy of the South East has been boosted with investments in key infrastructure like the newly rehabilitated Enugu International Airport. The federal government under President Buhari has executed many projects in the South East including the Ikot Ekpene-Alaoji-Ugwuaji Switching Station, Nmandi Azikwe Mausoleum, NSIA- Umuahia Diagnostic Centre (NUDC), upgrade of Aba-Itu- Malabar 132KV Line (82km) and other projects”.
The APC leaders in the South East usually mention the Ariaria Market Electrification Project by the Federal Government in its Energizing Economies Programme, which will bring stable and reliable electricity to all the 37,000 shops in Ariaria Market, by providing the Market with a gas-powered IPP as a part of Buhari’s achievements.
However, News Echo respondents were quick to point out that the Igbo politicians in APC have brought practically nothing to South East in the past six years Buhari has been in the saddle at the centre. Barrister Ndukwe Chinyeaka is a legal practitioner. He maintained that there was nothing absolutely tangible the Igbo APC politicians could boast with as their achievements in the last six years. According to him, “Let us take insecurity as our guide. In the last five years, insecurity has worsened in the zone. We now have herdsmen and gunmen attacks added to kidnapping and armed robbery which were with us. The question is what has the Igbo leaders in APC done to stop this anomaly before it assumes a worsening situation? Again, I can tell you that our people in APC must cover their faces in shame because I cannot understand why we 14 security chiefs and none is from this region”.
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, the minority leader in the senate, during his keynote address at Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, Owerri branch, recently noted thus “Is it too much to obey our constitution? Is it too much to observe Federal Character law? Is it too much to be fair to all the zones in this country? Is it too much for this administration to see the country as one?” The senator provided insights into why he asked those rhetorical questions.
He said, “ This has brought us to the absurd situation that every appointment of government is done only through the prism of sectionalism. Someone pointed out the other day of how all the revenue agencies of Nigeria FIRS, NNPC, CUSTOMS, DPR, NPA are in the hands of people from a particular part of Nigeria and religion. Ditto for the security agencies among others”.
Indeed, what Abaribe was actually delving into was “How can we have APC members in the South East and the zone is not well represented?”
An Aba based commentator on national issues, Mazi Izu Iwuala, said the Igbo leaders in APC have not brought anything meaningful home in the last six years. “Under the PDP arrangement, educationally, Alvan Ikoku College of Education Owerri became a federal institution. In that same line, the Ekwueme University, formerly FUNAI, in Ebonyi State, was created. Before the advent of PDP, there was no zonal police command in South East, but it broke that jinx and brought the Zone Nine Police Command.
Do not forget that our people travelling from East to West or the other way round used to have it tough from Onitsha to Benin, but it was the Federal Government under the administration of the PDP that made that road worthy. What of the Onitsha –Owerri Road that used to be a death trap? A PDP presidency rehabilitated it. Even the Akanu Ibiam International Airport the APC government is now taking glory for was done by the PDP and it was a part of Senator Anyim Pius’ crimes. Let me also add that President Goodluck Jonathan appointed an Igbo the army chief, for the first time in 45 years, made an Igbo the secretary to the federal government for the first time; even as President Yar’Adua confirmed an Igbo the IG of police for the first time. All these had their positive effects not just on Ndigbo but Nigeria as a country. Which one has APC done for the South East in this present dispensation”?
It was also revealed that the thousands of kilometers of roads Buhari is constructing or reconstructing across the country which are being made possible through the loans from China never crisscrossed the South East, not one lane! Again, the gas line being constructed by the present administration never considered the South East just as Ndigbo lost out in the allocation of the establishment of military universities under this administration. It is on record that Ndigbo are worried that, for the first in any democratic government in Nigeria, they are not the president, deputy president, president of the senate, deputy senate president, speaker, deputy speaker or even the national chairman of the party.
