NATIONAL: Photographer is the only person from southeast in Aso Rock — Abaribe

SENATE Minority leader, Enyinnaya Araribe has said the Buhari administration is not giving enough recognition to people who are not Northerners.

Abaribe, who demanded more recognition for people from the South East, said that the only ‘influential’ person from that region in the Aso Villa is a photographer.

Speaking on Friday while featuring as a guest on Channels Television’s programme ‘Sunrise Daily’, Abaribe dismissed a list of other people named as special assistants to the President, hinting that hey had no influential status in the villa.

“Do they see the president?” he asked the presenters.

Reacting to Ebonyi governor, David Umahi’s defection from the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, to the ruling All Progressives Party, APC, Abaribe said he wished him. He, however, said, defecting to the ruling APC would not guarantee Umahi’s emergence as the party’s presidential candidate in 2023 as the APC has not zoned the position to the South East.

Abaribe, who had earlier in the week said the party was unfazed by Umahis’ defection, also believes the governor’s movement will be gauged properly when it’s time for the 2023 elections.

His words: “Let us assume Governor Umahi is bringing the South East, as he says, into the mainstream because that was what I heard yesterday; what is the mainstream? Is it the Aso Villa that belongs to all of us that you cannot find a single person from the South East, except a photographer?

“Before every part of this country was represented in the Aso Villa, so when you want to do government business because sometimes government business is done from back channels, so if you have a problem or they want to do some consultations, you make a call into the Villa, you call to your countryman and say please can you tell oga this or that so that we can have this talk, there is none today inside the villa.

“So Umahi is going to talk to who? Ok, because he is governor he can talk to Chief of Staff, he can go to see the president but what about others?”

When confronted with names of those who are from the South East and aides to the president, Araribe responded by asking, ‘where are they? Can you call them and ask them to tell the President A, B, or C? Everybody knows that we do not have someone you can call a proper person within that whole enclave you call the Villa. We had access; we do not have that anymore. Of course, you can have low-level people being appointed, but what do they do that you can say these people make a difference in our lives in the South East?