S’East Did Not Put All Eggs in One Basket-Fidel Ayogu
S’East Did Not Put All Eggs in One Basket-Fidel Ayogu
Contrary to arguments that the Southeast geo-political zone lost out in the national power equation following the defeat of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded 2011 general elections, a chieftain of the party, Fidel Ayogu, weekend declared the position as a product of mischief.
Speaking in Abuja, Ayogu, a former Nigerian Ambassador to Uganda and Rwanda, said the zone followed a traditional pattern of voting which is not alien to other geo-political zones.
“It is only this time that people are saying that the Igbo put their eggs in one basket. We have always had a pattern of voting in this country. Even in the North, PDP states did not vote for Jonathan. In 2011, Niger State where most of the party big wigs come from, PDP did not win the election.
“President Jonathan did not receive sizeable number of votes from them and nobody discredited them. The Middle Belt still held the senate president. Some of them have been consistent. We know that the North have a way of voting in one direction. It is the same with the South East and South South.
“Nobody has used it as a basis for the distribution of ministerial positions or other positions or democracy dividends. Parties are set up to win elections. The moment you win election, every other part of the country is your constituency.
“And when you look at the whole scenario-2015 election, you will see that in the north, they had votes for the president in previous elections and in this last election April 11, they could not come close to the number of votes they had in the last election.
“If you total the number of voted cast in Kano, it did not come close to the number of votes of above two million votes in the last election-2011. Most of the northern states had more votes in the presidential elections but in the governorship elections, the votes were different but nobody is going into the details”, he said.
Ayogu, a gubernatorial aspirant, who moved a motion for the adoption of the Enugu State Governor-elect, Hon Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, at a stakeholders meeting before the guber primaries, asserted that the argument could be translated to mean that the South East should have voted PDP and APC at the same time.
“There is nothing like putting all eggs in one basket. People are not being sincere when they say you must stand with one leg on one party and one on the other. In other words, they are saying that the South east should have voted for Buhari and Jonathan at the same time”, he said
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