2023: Parties, not tribes will decide Presidential ticket says Gov Uzodinma

Amidst agitation among major stakeholders in South East that President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor should come to the zone, Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State on Tuesday declared that the decision of who flies the presidential flag rests squarely with the respective political parties.

The governor who spoke to newsmen after a closed door meeting with the president at the Presidential villa, Abuja said emergence of presidential candidates in the next election will not be based on ethnicity.

“Well you know the position is not vacant now, there is a sitting President and we are practising partisan democracy and not tribal democracy. So the emergence of presidential candidate will come on the party by party basis, not tribe by tribe basis.

“But if there are other internal factors that will form part of the considerations for parties taking the decision, of course, that will be entirely the job of the leadership of those political parties and I think that is the right thing to do,” he said.

He also took time to explain why he met with the president, stressing that the visit was to brief him of the problems in Imo state, particularly erosion to seek his intervention.

“In specific terms, the issue of erosion, the level of erosion in Imo state is alarming and I have taken time to explain to Mr President and he has assured me that the Federal Government will intervene as soon as possible.

“I used the opportunity also to bring to his knowledge the development in the South East and that our people are grateful on the completion and opening of the Enugu Airport and we are also happy with the speed and the pace of work at the Second Niger Bridge and the various agric intervention programmes he brought to South East.

“And also use the same opportunity to ask for more because you know in this business, the more you get, you must ask for more. I am sure and I believe that Mr President is committed to alleviating some of the problems in the South East region and Imo in particular.

“Asked how erosion funds received by the state had been deployed, he explained: “I don’t know of what happened before I became the governor, but you know I am a parliamentarian and under the law, we have National Council of Environment and Ecological Fund. It is a discretionary fund; it takes only the approval of the President for those funds to be used.

“If you identify an ecological site that requires intervention and you write to the President through the Secretary to the Federal Government and they consider some of the projects, those projects will be awarded by the Ecological Fund office.

“I don’t know of money being given to governors, maybe this was before my time but what I have done is to identify the critical areas. If you go to Federal University of Technology Owerri towards Avu, you will see that the road is almost being cut into two and because of the population of students living across the other side, if nothing is done, you find a situation where students will not have access to their usual lectures and again the lives and property of those in those areas are also threatened.

“If you recall in 1982 President (Shehu) Shagari visited Imo State of then and made a promise to correct Amucha erosion. Amucha erosion has so degraded to the extent that it is now a death trap.

“Incidentally, it is part of the area that the Imo State government is struggling now to get Julius Berger to dualize the road. I am sure that if the Federal Government intervenes and take the erosion aspect of the road, it will be cheaper for Imo state and affordable for us to pay a contractor like Julius Berger to now concentrate on the road alone.
“So these are some of the things I brought to the knowledge of Mr. President and I can assure you, in his usual magnanimous manner, he is committed because he has the listening ear.

“When I resumed on January, you will recall last year, Owerri people were going to market using a canoe, the level of flooding in Owerri was terrible. So, what I did first was to review the Owerri master plan, identify the drawing of the drainage system established since 1981 and then got in touch with the company that did the job from Isreal.”