APC Presidential candidate Tinubu clears up warning to South East about PDP’s ‘slice of soaked bread’ at Enugu rally.
Tinubu’s spokesman Dr. Onoh clarifies the warning to Southeast using Santayana’s ‘Life of Reason’ quote on voting with interest instead of emotions
Onoh states that the political downfall of the southeast since 1999 is due to their consistent support for PDP presidential candidates, and warns that repeating this mistake in 2023 will result in continued neglect from the PDP. He argues that despite the support given to the PDP, the southeast region has been neglected, with politicians and wealthy individuals seeking to control the area for their own gain, causing the region’s decline.
He states that the South East’s support for the PDP, particularly for their presidential candidates, is unjustifiable, flawed, and disastrous. He accuses the five South East states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo of being guilty of this “crime”. He commends governors of Imo, Ebonyi, and Anambra states for realizing that political affinities are based on mutual benefit. He also commends other politicians in the region but criticizes those who only support PDP for personal gain and ignore the best interest of the region. He calls for the Southeast to come together and pursue a full loaf of bread for the region, instead of just lip service.
He accuses anyone who genuinely wishes to support Asiwaju in the southeast of deceit, and former President Obasanjo of inventing the practice of a small group of PDP stalwarts controlling the region like a fiefdom. He argues that this group benefits from democracy rather than the people of the region and that Obasanjo is attempting the same with his support for the Labour Party today. He contends that the southeast region is left in tatters and ruins due to the support for the PDP-led presidency since 1999. He cites the Senate ad-hoc Committee on Transport’s submission in 2009 that the federal roads in the southeast are the worst in the country and the PDP-led federal government’s refusal to fix the dangerous roads despite the people’s clamor. He expresses his heartbreak at the state of the federal roads in Southeast Nigeria.
Onoh accuses the PDP-led government of awarding contracts for patching up federal roads in the southeast to relatively unknown construction companies owned mainly by obscure party members. He also accuses the governors of the five South East states of lining up behind the PDP-led federal government for personal gain and other avaricious reasons, singing the praises of the president while paying lip service to the infrastructural evils afflicting the region. He states that the southeast had been waiting for the completion of several federal government projects such as the Second Niger Bridge, the dredging of the River Niger to allow for a container terminal to be opened in Onitsha, the completion of the Onitsha-Owerri road, the rehabilitation of the Onitsha-Enugu highway, and the patching up of the Nnewi-Okigwe road. He accuses the governors of the southeast of bludgeoning their people with propaganda into voting for PDP Presidential candidates in 2015 and 2019 despite the calculated flagrant neglect of their region by the federal government. He states that salvation came to the southeast from the APC-led government despite not giving them their votes in 2015 and 2019. He listed several projects that the APC Buhari-led administration has delivered in the southeast such as the rehabilitation of the Enugu–Port Harcourt Expressway, the Rehabilitation of the Amansea–Enugu Border section of the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway, Rehabilitation of the 18km critical stretch of Onitsha–Awka Road, Construction of Second Niger Bridge, Rehabilitation of Arochukwu–Ohafia–Bende Road, Ariaria Market Electrification Project, and Federal Government’s Energizing Education Programme.
Onoh listed several other projects that the APC Buhari-led administration has delivered in the southeast such as the completed Ikot Ekpene – Alaoji – Ugwuaji Switching Station and Transmission Line, the Construction of Modern Medical Diagnostic Centre at the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, the completed Nnamdi Azikiwe Mausoleum, the Enyimba City Special Economic Zone, the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative, the Social Investment Programme, the School Feeding Programme, the Pensions paid to Retired War-Affected (Ex-Biafran) Police, and the Renovation and upgrade of the Akanu Ibiam Airport to International standards. He advised the Southeast to wake up, drop politics of sentiment and emotion, and embrace a politics of mutual benefit for the Southeast region by voting for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the coming February 25, 2023. He said that together, the Southeast can liberate themselves from the continuously eating a slice of soaked bread they have been continuously served and that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s warning during the Enugu rally is a wakeup call for the region to support him and be assured that Southeast will be served a full loaf of bread fresh from the oven of mutual benefit.
Source: The Guardian