By Lawrence Olaoye
Ebonyi state governor on the platform of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), David Umahi, has endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term bid ahead of the 2019 Presidential election.
This is coming after some governors on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have earlier pledged their support to the President even though they maintained that he would have to emerge as the party’s flagbearer through a free and fair primary.
Meanwhile, Buhari has yet to declare his ambition to continue beyond 2019 when his first term in office as Nigerian President expires.
Umahi who spoke with State House Correspondents after a meeting with Presidency officials at the Villa ahead the President’s official visit to his state next week yesterday said he wished the President to contest for second term since he too would be doing same as a first term governor.
Asked whether the President had personally discussed his 2019 ambition with him, Umahi said
“Well, any first term governor would want to go for second term and if what you wish yourself, you should be honest enough to wish another person the same. Since Mr President is doing his first term and I am doing my first term, it’s my wish to re-contest and I will as well wish the president the same to re-contest.”
On what projects the President would be commissioning in his state, Umahi said “We have quite a lot of projects that we have executed within this past two and the half years . We have three numbers of twin flyovers that are built across the African Transahara Road running from Enugu to Cameroon passing through Ebonyi State. So, we have to build three twin flyovers to decongest traffic on that road. Each of the twin flyover is 700 metre length.
“We have completed two and the third one is 80% done. Mr. President will commission the two. We also have a mall what we call Ebonyi Mall that is modelled after the famous Dubai Mall; but a kind of microcosm of that. And we intend for the President to lay a foundation stone of that mall which we like Mr President to commission within the next 12 months.
“Also we are building a tunnel that dovetails into a flyover that is parallel to the existing flyover. That particular junction that is called Akanibium junction. We want Mr President to lay the foundation stone and that flyover bridge will be named after Mr President and we are sure to finish that project in the next 12 months. Mr President will also come back, he will be commissioning it when he comes back for his campaigns. So we will like to make them ready.
“There is also a federal Road that is 14.5km that we got the consent of Mr President to build and toll the road. It’s fully done. We have 18.5km that is leading to the Federal University, we did that road with concrete and overlaid it with Asphalt; its fully ready. We have 15.5km of Nigercem; that road passes through the first cement factory in the country which is in Ebonyi State and it passes to Benue. We will build the 15.5 km in the axis of Ebonyi with concrete ready for Mr President to commission. 23.5m of state road we built with concrete is ready for Mr President to commission.
We have 500km of internal roads which we completed in Ebonyi is ready for Mr President to commission. We have the stadium we remodelled,”
