A former aide to Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State on Media, Lady Monica Chidinma, has has berated former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode.
Naija News reports that Fani-Kayode had claimed after defecting to the All Progressives Congress, APC, that he was instrumental the defection of Governor Umahi, Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State and Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River.
Reacting to Fani-Kayode’s claim during an interview with Channels TV, Umahi had denied that the former minister played any part in his defection.
While describing the former minister’s claim as insulting, he urged Fani-Kayode to take back his statement.
Also reacting in a statement sent to Naija News on Saturday, Lady Chidinma warned the APC leadership to apply caution in her engagements with the newest entrant into the party.
She said: “After watching the interview granted by former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, at the State House, Abuja shortly after his formal defection to the APC, where he claimed that he lured my uncle, the Governor of Ebonyi State and Chairman of the South East Governors Forum, Engr. Dave Umahi, into the All Progressives Congress, the need for the party to deploy an appreciable degree of caution in her dealings with the new entrant becomes exigent.”
Governor Umahi’s former aide noted that although she holds no grudge against Fani-Kayode’s defection into the APC, but taking credit for the exit of Umahi from the PDP in the way and manner he did is totally unacceptable.
She stated that the former minister’s bogus claim ridicules the integrity of the Governor.
Monica maintained that the rationale behind the exit of Umahi from PDP and his subsequent entrance into the APC, is a public knowledge and thus it is mockery for Fani-Kayode to scamp for relevance through non-existent facts and a tale of fanciful fantasy.
She said “as a PDP Governor, while others take pleasure publicly insulting and ridiculing President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration, Governor Umahi warned us (his Aides) against joining the clique of non-patriots who demonize Buhari for no just cause.
“It is on record that Governor Umahi looks on President Buhari as his political father and has done everything to conduct himself within that realm so how can Kayode claim that he is instrumental to a son joining his father at the centre based on relationship between Buhari and Umahi.
“To show his firm relationship with Umahi, Monica said that during President Buhari’s State visit to Ebonyi in 2020, President Buhari, slept and spent two days in Abakaliki the State Capital of Ebonyi, commissioning and inaugurating projects after projects, a feat no other State in Nigeria has achieved apart from Kastina, where President Buhari has stayed more than two days.”
The former Aide to the Governor said Umahi joined the APC to relink the South East to the Federal Government and mainstream of the politics of Nigeria.
She added that unalloyed support that the South East has offered to the PDP for over 20 years, denying the zone the party’s 2019 presidential ticket in the midst of eminently qualified persons is atrocious and pricks the conscience.
“For Chief Kayode, a newbie in the APC to claim after all these facts that he was instrumental to Umahi entrance into the Party, is self-serving, unfortunate, unbecoming and insulting to the person and personality of Governor Umahi,” Monica said.
She urged Fani-Kayode, to as a matter of urgency, withdraw his frivolous statement in order to revalidate his claims that Gov. Umahi is his friend.
This article was originally published on Naija News