Ebonyi State Governor Francis Nwifuru is a no-nonsense man. He doesn’t mince words. And he also doesn’t fear unfair criticism when a matter coming from his heart is concerned about.
- “Whether you vote Tinubu or not he’ll win in 2027,” Dave Umahi tells S’East voters
- Dave Umahi’s son win LG chairmanship in Ebonyi at 28
While inaugurating the 13 chairmen of the local government areas in Abakaliki, yesterday, Nwifuru said he would sack any chairman who fail to win his council for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2023. And he wasn’t stopping just there. If such chairman was sacked, he or she would be replaced with a ward councillor, he told them.
“Any chairman who fails to win (2027 elections) his council will be removed from office and replaced with a councillor,” Nwifuru declared, stressing that he wasn’t afraid, but instead very proud to speak like that for the public to hear.
“I want this information to be on the headlines of newspapers because, as politicians, we would not speak in secret.
“The chairmen know we would win in the state and if they choose to sleep and allow others take their areas, they would be removed,” he said.
Urging the deputies to work hand in hand with the chairmen, Governor Francis Nwifuru made it clear that APC must take Ebonyi State hundred percent in 2027.
His hard-line stance has since raised eyebrows, with many netizens likening that to a command for a do-or-die assignment.
But most strangely, it’s the governor’s boldness in the face of the media that is most troubling. The man sounded more like a someone who has the power to install and remove an elected chairman of a council. But then, that’s the norm in Nigeria’s version of democracy: all powers in the state – including the rights of an elected council chairman – belong ultimately to the governor.