•Says I wish Buhari will re-contest in 2019
Ebonyi State governor, Dave Umahi, has thrown his weight behind the idea of President Muhammadu Buhari seeking a second tenure in 2019.
Emerging from a meeting called to fine tune the president impending visit to his state, he told State House corespondents in Abuja, on Thursday, that as someone in his first term and wishing to run again, he also wished the same for Buhari who is also in his first term.
He said: “Well, any first term governor would want to go for second term. What you wish yourself, you should be honest enough to wish another person the same.
“Since , Mr President is doing his first term and I am doing my first term, it’s my wish to re-contest and I will as well wish the president the same to re-contest.”
The governor outlined some projects that the president will coming on his visit next week, hoping that Buhari will be able to commission others when he goes back to the state for his re-election campaign in 2019.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governor had previously denied speculation that he might dump the opposition party for the ruling party, describing such notion as false.
Asked how prepared the state was to receive the President, the governor said: “We are fully prepared for the visit. We pleaded with Mr. President for the visit and before then we have been preparing, we are fully prepared.”
On the purpose of the president’s visit, he added: “We have quite a lot of projects that we have executed within this past two and the half years.
“We have three numbers of twin flyovers that are built across the African TransSahara Road running from Enugu to Cameroon passing through Ebonyi State. So, we have to build three twin flyover to decongest traffic on that road. Each of the twin flyover is 700 metre length.
“We have completed two and the third one is 80 percent done. Mr President will commission the two. We also have a mall, what we call Ebonyi mall that is modelled after the famous Dubai mall.
“But a kind of microcosm of that microcosm. And we intend for the President to lay a foundation stone of that mall which we will like Mr. President to commission within the next 12 months.
“Also we are building a tunnel that dovetails into a flyover that is parallel to the existing flyover. That particular junction that is called Akanu Ibiam junction. We want Mr. President to lay the foundation stone and that flyover bridge will be named after Mr. President and we are sure to finish that project in the next 12 months.
“Mr. President will also come back, he wil be commissioning it when he comes back for his campaigns. So, we will like to make them ready.
“So, there is also a federal road that is 14.5km that we got the consent of Mr. President to build and toll the road. It’s fully done. We have 18.5km that is leading to the Federal University, we did that road with concrete and overlaid it with Asphalt, its fully ready.
“We have 15.5km of Nigercem that road that passes through the first cement factory in the country which is in Ebonyi State and it’s passes to Benue. We will build the 15.5 km in the axis of Ebonyi with concrete, ready for Mr. President to commission. 23.5m of state road we built with concrete is ready for Mr President to commission.
“We have 500km of internal roads which we completed in Ebonyi, is ready for Mr President to commission. We have the stadium we remodelled, we have the best VIP stands in the whole country in our stadium and is fully air conditioned and all the stands are fully covered. Mr. President will also commission that.
“We have a minimum of 30km of concrete road in each of our local government, most of them completed, some have attained 80 percent completion.
“We have quite a lot for Mr. President to commission. We have mushrooms factory, agric project that I want the president to commission. We have a launch of one man one hectare programme in Ebonyi, we want Mr President to launch it for us.”