According to Umahi, Buhari’s visit to the state was already billed for early next year.
The Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, on Sunday, lambasted the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) over the group’s threat to lock down the South-East region should President Muhammadu Buhari visit the state.
According to Umahi, Buhari’s visit to the state was already billed for early next year, adding, however, that projects to that effect (in the state), were being executed as if he was to visit this month (December 2021).
Umahi stated this during the state annual Thanksgiving Service at the Government House Chapel, Abakaliki, saying the IPOB spokesman, Emma Powerful, lacked both the capacity and warfare prowess to stop Buhari from visiting the state.
Umahi said, “I saw where one misguided element that calls himself IPOB, said Mr President is not welcomed in Ebonyi. He is inconsequential and I want you to put it on social media.
“I was in Paris and I told Mr President that the leaders of the South-East would want to visit him over the issue of peace in the South-East, and I appeal to him to postpone the visit till early next year.
“But I didn’t want to tell our people because I was urging them to keep pushing our projects as if the President was going to come this year. And I’m not sure up to three or four people knew this; so, I kept it to myself.
“So, Mr President will come when we want him to come. That IPOB guy is an inconsequential human being. If he is serious, let him hit the wall to Ebonyi State and let him see, if he would find feet to go back.
“Somebody will sit down somewhere and be talking rubbish and they will be misguiding our children to go and be killed, but he himself will not be at the war front.
“Any of them that will talk rubbish about security in South-East should come and lead the war. And I will also lead the war for Ebonyi State. And like David, we will always kill Goliath.
“When they talk rubbish, just ignore them. This land belongs to God.”
IPOB’s Director of Media and Publicity, Emma Powerful, had in a statement, on Thursday, said the group had intelligence that President Buhari would visit Ebonyi State and threatened to shut down the South-East geopolitical zone, should that happen.