Say Igbo’re shortchanged

From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

Members of the South East Caucus in the Senate, yesterday, met with President Muhammadu Buhari over pressing issues facing the zone.

Some of the issues raised at the closed-door meeting centred on the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), lopsided appointments and decaying infrastructure in the zone.

The South-East senators were led by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu and the caucus’ chairman, Eyinnaya Abaribe, to the meeting held inside the President’s office at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Speaking to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Ekweremadu who said the zone believes in using dialogue to address issues, described the discussion as cordial and revealed that they secured a promise from the President  to look into the issues raised.

He said, “for us from the South East, we believe that dialogue is better than any other form of engagement.

“So, we decided to visit the President and present to him some of the concerns of the South East including the issues of roads, general infrastructure; the rail, airports and others.

“We also discussed the issue of security with him and of course the issue of IPOB. We had a good conversation and he promised to look into the issues.”

Abaribe, on his part said although there were problems everywhere, the South East remained the most shortchanged zone in the country.

He said the President told the delegation that governors from the zone had also raised some of the issues with him, promising to address the concerns.

“This is the South East caucus in the Senate and we came to see the President because of the issues we have in the South East.

“We had a fruitful discussion with the President. He has promised us that he is going to look into the problems of South East.

“We know that there are problems everywhere but we also believe that the South East is the zone that is far much shortchanged at this time than other zones.

“We also talked about the issue of appointments from the South East, especially with respect to the National Security Council. The President also told us that governors of the South East have also engaged him in the same problems we engaged him in.

“We are reassured with the response we got from the President and we look forward to further interaction with him in this manner.”

Other senators on the delegation were Sam Egwu, Hope Uzodinma, Andy Uba and Chukwuka Utazi.