{"id":76530,"date":"2025-10-13T00:56:59","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T00:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=76530"},"modified":"2025-10-13T00:56:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T00:56:59","slug":"let-people-decide-on-south-east-presidency-obi-tells-umahi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/10\/13\/let-people-decide-on-south-east-presidency-obi-tells-umahi\/","title":{"rendered":"Let People Decide on South-East Presidency, Obi Tells Umahi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Labour Party\u2019s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has dismissed Minister of Works David Umahi\u2019s claim that it is not yet the South-East\u2019s turn to produce Nigeria\u2019s president, saying only voters, not politicians, can decide who leads the country in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking through his media aide, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, Obi said democracy is about the will of the people, not elite agreements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is the people who will decide who becomes the next president, not any individual,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p>Umahi had urged South-East politicians to support President Bola Tinubu\u2019s re-election bid and wait until after his tenure, citing Tinubu\u2019s ongoing infrastructure projects in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Obi countered that while zoning is part of Nigeria\u2019s political reality, performance and credibility should guide voters\u2019 choices.<\/p>\n<p>He warned against interpreting recent defections in the South-East as genuine political realignment, calling them \u201cdesperate moves for government patronage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The exchange between Obi and Umahi has reignited debate on zoning and political inclusion, with analysts noting it signals early positioning ahead of the 2027 elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata Labour Party\u2019s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has dismissed Minister of Works David Umahi\u2019s claim that it is not yet the South-East\u2019s turn to produce Nigeria\u2019s president, saying only voters, not politicians, can decide who leads the country in 2027. Speaking through his media aide, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, Obi said democracy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":76531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76532,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76530\/revisions\/76532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}