The All Progressives Congress in Anambra State on Wednesday warned the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, to stop setting agenda for President Muhammadu Buhari.
The party’s caution followed a statement credited to the immediate past state Chairman of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr Chris Eluemunoh, charging the president to complete the construction of the Second Niger Bridge, which was initiated by his predecessor, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Mr Okelo Madukaife, on Wednesday in Awka, the Anambra APC described Eluemunoh’s call as sheer “busy body”.
Madukaife said, “Buhari does not need such reminder from anybody to do the right thing for the people of the area.
“Buhari and Ndigbo do not need a selfish call from a hate campaigner working to confront Ndigbo with the Federal Government. They can do without those trying to drive a wedge for themselves in the guise of Ohanaeze activists.
“It’s the dream of both Buhari’s government and all visionary persons in the South-East, including every member of APC in the geopolitical zone, to see the completion of the Lagos-Onitsha Expressway, abandoned at Asaba long time ago. It is this project that many try to isolate and hype as Second Niger Bridge and position it as a signature project for Ndigbo.
“Many politicians, particularly of the PDP stock, who enjoy the unflinching loyalty of Dr Eluemuno, have taken this advantage to exploit Ndigbo.
“The exploitation cuts across government but got to a height under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, when a former governor of Anambra State, taking advantage of his closeness to the President, colluded in the inflation of the cost of the project by about six times the actual cost for personal gains and tied the recovery of the money to the exploitation of Ndigbo across two generations”.
Madukaife added, “President Buhari, upon the advice of APC leadership in Anambra State and the South East, has accepted to complete the expressway running from Lagos to Onitsha, which four-lane format stopped dramatically in Asaba by taking it to Onitsha, based on a reviewed project that removes the cost padding, that Eluemuno is protecting for his benefactors and the removal of the toll-gate burden to allow the project be funded by the Federal government, as in other parts of Nigeria.
“It is an irony of sort that Dr Eluemuno, who only a breadth ago, began a hate campaign to drive a wedge between Ndigbo and the Presidency under Buhari, is by the latest statement, appearing to do good to Ndigbo, while in fact protecting the commission he stands to earn in the ‘Second Niger Bridge Project’ as presently constituted.
“We therefore wish to remind Eluemunoh, whose partisanship has never been hidden, that President Buhari does not need any reminder to do the needful on the completion of the Lagos-Onitsha Expressway and certainly does not consider Eluemuno a catalyst of Igbo interest in the project”.
