You Can’t Reassign Ebonyi South Senatorial Seat to Family Member, LP Candidate Tells Umahi

Benjamin Nworie in Abakaliki

Ebonyi South Senatorial Candidate of the Labour Party(LP), Hon. Linus Abaa Okorie, has chided the Minister of Works and former occupant of the seat,  David Umahi that he lacked the locus to determine who replaces him as a Senator of the zone.

Umahi had claimed during his courtesy call on Ebonyi State Governor, Chief Francis Nwifuru, that he would choose the person who would fly the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the senatorial re-run of the zone.

The minister also insisted that the position would still remain in his Ohaozara local government where his younger brother, Austin Umahi and the former Commissioner for Investment, Mrs Chioma Nweze were already rumoured to be possible replacements.

However, Umahi’s challenger in the senatorial election and candidate of the LP, Okorie, noted that it was tending to malignant desperation for Umahi to be assigning and re-assigning a position that was still subject of litigation.

Okorie said: “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 LP 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 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”.

The LP candidate further urged his supporters and people of Ebonyi South zone to ignore Umahi’s declaration as the ultimate decision resides with them in the event the Court of Appeal orders a rerun of the senatorial election.