BY: EMMANUEL CHUKWUMA, ENUGU.

All Progress Congress, APC, Chieftain and member of the Imo State Council of Elders, Barr. Marcillinus Okechukwu Nlemigbo has advised leaders and eligible voters of Igbo extraction to shun ethnic and tribal sentiments while casting their votes in the 2027 presidential election.

Barr. Nlemigbo stressed that although one of the prominent politicians of the Igbo race, Mr. Peter Obi, has indicated interest in the presidential race, simple reason demands that President Bola Tinubu should be allowed to complete a second tenure.

Barr. Nlemigbo, former Imo State Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), who briefed newsmen in Owerri on the outcome of the conduct of the APC party primaries in the state, insisted that the presidency is not rocket science but something that requires patience and hard work to achieve.

He said, “Mr Peter Obi is quite eligible and qualified for the presidential seat, but there is a process to get there, and so the South East should vote massively for President Tinubu because he is working assiduously to liberate the nation from the decay he met on the ground three years ago”.

The APC Chieftain argued that the nation’s economic crunch could have worsened without the visionary pragmatic approach of the president and his effective management and utilization of the nation’s human resources.

Barr. Nlemigbo dismissed insinuations in some quarters that the presidency had failed to tackle the nation’s security challenges, stressing that the president is doing the best he can to remedy the situation that has since transformed into a global phenomenon.

“Insecurity is not peculiar to us as a nation. It has become a global issue, and greedy people, who do not value human lives, do not have the fear of God on them, and are rabidly fanatical about their religion, are the people behind it”.

He commended Governor Hope Uzodimma and the chairman of the APC in the state, Hon Austine Onyedebelu, for ensuring a hitch-free party primaries in the state, even as he congratulated those who won and enjoined those who couldn’t make it to accept the situation in good faith.

On the Imo Charter of Equity, which rotates the governorship seat among the three zones of Owerri, Orlu, and Okigwe, Nlemigbo disclosed that the Imo Council of Elders had settled for Owerri zone to produce the successor of Governor Hope Uzodimma next year.

Reacting to his rumoured gubernatorial ambition, the APC kingpin stressed, “We are all followers and out of this, somebody must emerge, and whoever secures the ticket, we will all support him in our party to succeed”.