.
.
By 247ureports.com
Minister of Works David Umahi has again urged Ebonyi State residents not to vote for NDC presidential candidate Peter Obi in 2027, reportedly challenging Obi to name a single Ebonyi indigene he appointed during his tenure as Anambra governor, and pushing back on any suggestion that rejecting Obi amounts to an insult to Ebonyi people.
The Latest Round
According to the statement circulating attributed to Umahi, the minister argued that South East solidarity around Obi has historically applied only when votes were being sought, not when Ebonyi voters choose differently, and that Ebonyi indigenes are “not second-class citizens in Igbo land,” entitled to decide what serves their own people’s interests.
While 247ureports.com could not independently verify this specific quote in these exact words through available reporting, it is fully consistent with a pattern of remarks Umahi has made publicly and repeatedly over recent weeks and years.
A Years-Long Pattern
Umahi’s opposition to Obi’s presidential ambitions is longstanding and well documented. As Ebonyi governor in 2022, he told residents flatly: “We will not vote for the Labour Party… tell them not to look for our votes, our votes belong to APC.” In 2025, at the Ohanivo New Yam Festival, he declared there was “no single Obidient supporter in Ebonyi State again,” describing the 2023 election result — in which Obi won Ebonyi with roughly 46.85% of the vote — as a mistake the state would not repeat, and framing Ebonyi’s history within the South East explicitly through a marginalization lens, saying the state and the wider region “have been marginalised for too long.”
Just this September, Umahi told NANS officials in Abuja that “the more we educate our people, the less votes Peter Obi will get,” arguing no other Nigerian president has done as much for the South East as Tinubu “whether by appointment, inclusion or projects.” Days later, inspecting road projects in Onueke, Ebonyi, he dismissed Obi’s stated concerns about threats to his safety as calculated to attract sympathy, and again cautioned Obi against assuming the South East remains his political stronghold, calling 2023’s outcome there “an accident of history.”
The Grievance Behind the Grievance
Umahi’s antagonism toward Obi has a specific historical root: in 2018, as Ebonyi governor and chairman of the South East Governors’ Forum, Umahi publicly complained that then-PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar’s decision to pick Obi as running mate came without consulting Ebonyi or Imo states, and that no vice-presidential nominees had come from either state despite two coming from Anambra, two from Abia and one from Enugu. At the time, Umahi insisted “nobody is against Peter Obi” personally, while still pressing for what he called equitable treatment of Ebonyi within the South East’s political calculus — a framing of intra-regional marginalization that has run through his rhetoric ever since, now redirected against Obi’s own candidacy.
Obi’s Response
Obi has generally avoided responding to Umahi in kind. Speaking in Enugu, Obi said he would not insult or disrespect the president or his political opponents regardless of their differences — a posture he has maintained even as Umahi has escalated his rhetoric against him in the run-up to 2027.
