• Says president has done well for zone Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, has said the governors of the five South East states have resolved to work for President Bola Tinubu’s victory in next year’s election. He said they arrived at the decision based on verifiable facts of what Tinubu’s administration has done for the zone, against the propaganda certain politicians using the South East as template for anti-government sentiment. Speaking during a meeting with members of the Imo State Elders Council and those of the Traditional Rulers Council at the New EXCO Chambers Government House Owerri, Uzodimma, who is the Chairman of South East Governors Forum, said the governors have no doubt that President Tinubu has done well for the Zone compared to what the South East got before now from previous administrations. “The attempt by certain politicians to use the South East as a stage for anti-government sentiment is most despicable. We need to match propaganda with facts,” Uzodimma, who is also Chairman of Progressives Governors’ Forum and Director General of Renewed Hope Ambassadors, said. He proceeded to reel out what the Tinubu administration has done for the zone measured against what was on ground before now, and urged the people to be wary of the usual campaign rhetorics in the South East often woven around marginalisation. “For the first time in Nigeria’s history, the South East has a Development Commission. President Tinubu signed the South East Development Commission Act into law on 24th July 2024. He signed the bill, inaugurated the board in February 2025, and the work began. No previous administration did this for the South East. Not one. “On rail, the federal government inaugurated the Port Harcourt to Aba line in May 2024. Sixty-three kilometres of rehabilitated track now connect the South South directly to Abia State, carrying passengers five days a week. “In November 2024, the section was formally handed over to the Nigerian Railway Corporation for full commercial operations. President Tinubu has since allocated $3 billion to reconstruct the entire Eastern Rail Corridor, which will run from Port Harcourt through the South East to Maiduguri. “On roads, the Tinubu administration is executing Phases 2A and 2B of the access roads to the Second Niger Bridge, a dual carriageway running from the Umunya-Ogbunike axis through Ogidi and Nkpor-Umuoji into Asaba, with seven bridges along its length. “The President flagged off Phase 2B himself in March 2025. The APC government built the Second Niger Bridge. This administration is completing the network of roads that makes it economically useful to every community around it. “This month, President Tinubu approved two further road projects that Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, of the APGA, welcomed as ‘a turning point for Igboland.’ The first is the 108-kilometre Otuocha-Anam-Abaji Road, opening a direct corridor from Anambra into the North Central. “The second is the 150-kilometre Oba-Nnewi-Uga-Ihube/Okigwe Junction Road, connecting Anambra and Imo States to the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, with linkages into Abia State. “These roads, this rail line, and this Commission are facts. You can drive on the roads. You can board the train. You can walk into the SEDC offices. The evidence is physical. To stand before South Easterners and urge them to resent a President who has given their zone this much attention is to insult their intelligence. “And these are the dividends particular to the South East. They sit on top of everything the zone shares with every other Nigerian under this administration such as the determined effort to restore security, the student loans now putting thousands of young South Easterners through school, the higher allocations strengthening the finances of all five States in the Zone, and the fiscal reforms easing the cost of trade, among them, the cut in vehicle import duty from twenty per cent to ten on new vehicles and from fifteen to five on used ones. The South East eats from the national table like every other Nigerian. What has changed is that a place has now been set for it in particular.”
Don't miss out on breaking stories and in-depth articles.
