APC Chieftain Faults Opposition To South East Producing Next Senate President

A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress in the South East, Dr Josh Oku, has berated the recent report attributed to a member of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC), Salihu Moh Lukman, that the South East has no right to vie for the position of the Senate President in the 10th Senate Assembly, because the zone did not support the party in the 2023 general elections, which produced Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the president-elect.

Oku, who spoke to journalists in Abuja, said it was unfortunate that a leader in the calibre of Lukman, who is a member of APC NWC would be making a statement that divides the country more than unites it.

He said such the statement as attributed to Lukman will rather polarise the party more which the victory of Tinubu intends to bridge, as has been explained repeatedly by the president-elect, that he is out to unite the country and assuage those  who felt left out in the affairs of the country in the last eight years.

“How can you expect such a dividing and incendiary statement from a man that claims to be an elder in APC? This shows that he lacks what it takes to be a party man in the first place thus he does not deserve to be a member of the national working committee of our great party, in the first place.

“Every member of APC knows that the south-east is the biggest catch the party made in the last election,” he added.

Lukman had urged the APC NWC to zone the Senate president seat to South-South zone, rather than South East. He argued that the South East never supported the party in the 2023 general elections like the South-South did, adding that the NWC must take the decisions to emerge from the debate by party organs at various levels, as the conclusions reached will constitute the party’s position on any matter which will then be binding on all the members of the party from the President to every member.

But while responding to  the NWC member and also making a case for Governor David Nweze Umahi of Ebonyi State, who is a front runner for the position of the Senate president,  Oku said Umahi who is a senator-elect from the southern part of the state, is known within the APC hierarchy as being behind the recent inroads the party has made in the South East and the South-South  zones of the country.

“Tell me a zone that has made a remarkable inroad like southeast in just a few years of coming into APC with just one state, to the present two states of Ebonyi and Imo states, with more additional members of the national assembly and their state counterparts from the zone?

“This positive inroad shows a serious commitment to national integration through the diligence and calculations of His Excellency Engr David Nweze Umayi, who has continuously projected and integrated the zone into the mainstream national politics, when he defected from PDP to APC in 2020.

“With his coming into the ruling party, he has breathed a new lease of life in party in the zone, where you now see many notable politicians who were hitherto shying away from identifying with the party in zone, fully embracing it, and coming out to run for elections, especially in the last concluded general elections,” he said.