By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
The only top guy from the South East working for President Muhammadu Buhari in Aso Villa is a photographer, the Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Araribe, has said.
In an interview, Friday, November 20, during the Channels Television programme, Sunrise Daily, Abaribe said Governor David Umahi defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for reasons other than protecting the interest of the South East.
Abaribe was criticizing the defection of the Ebonyi Governor to the APC on the ground that the PDP had been unfair to the South East, hence his move to the APC to take the region to the mainstream politics.
But Abaribe dismissed Umahi’s reason: “Let us assume Governor Umahi is bringing the South-East, as he says, into the mainstream because that was what I heard yesterday (November 19). 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. There’s only one guy, his name is Sunny, I think he’s a photographer.
“So, Umahi is going to talk to who? Okay, because he is governor he can talk to Chief of Staff, he can go to see the President but what about others?”
The presenters then mentioned some aides of President Buhari who are from the South East, Abaribe responded.
“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.”