2027: Mbah urges Igbos to return to ‘strategic politics’ as pro-Tinubu group storms Enugu

Governor of Enugu State, Peter Mbah, has said the Igbo-speaking people of the South-east must play “strategic politics” to be at the centre of decision-making going forward.

Mr Mbah lamented that the region had never been as politically fragmented and disconnected from the centre as it had been in recent years.

The governor spoke when he received the leadership and members of the City Boy Movement at Government House, Enugu, on Tuesday.

The City Boy Movement is a group dedicated to President Bola Tinubu’s re-election.

Mr Mbah recalled that the political forebears of Igbo people had always been “strategic” and were not known for sentimental and isolationist politics.

He said Igbo people could not afford to play on the margins of Nigerian politics and decision-making tables going forward.

“If you go back in history and talk about our forebears, they were always willing to have a handshake across the Niger whenever it became necessary. For us, as Ndi Igbo, we have never played politics driven by sentiment.

“We have always been very strategic and that is what has been bequeathed to us by our forebears. We cannot allow that to be eroded before our very eyes,” he said.

“We are not even at a table where critical national issues are discussed. If you look at the order of protocol in this country today, the order of succession, we are nowhere. I think we should be at number six, which is the deputy speaker.”

The governor, however, expressed happiness that the Igbo people had begun to retrace their steps by connecting to the central government.

“We have never, as a zone, until recently, been so fragmented. But I want to believe that such fragmentation has somehow ended. We are all speaking from one page now in terms of leadership in the South-east,” Mr Mbah said.

He praised President Tinubu’s economic policies, saying that although they came with initial economic challenges, they had helped ease macroeconomic pressures and address uncertainties, such as foreign-exchange-related concerns that scared foreign investors.

The governor also commended Igbo young entrepreneurs and professionals for embracing the President Tinubu administration and expressed a strong belief that Nigerians would re-elect the president in 2027, “especially as the dividends of the Renewed Hope Agenda increasingly trickled down to the masses”.

“We must not allow ourselves to be deceived again. We have to align ourselves to be strategic, and the way to be strategic is to be analytical, be very objective, and deal with reality rather than be delusional. We know what the political reality today is. It is up to us to embrace the winning and leading team.

“Given the policies and programmes of the Renewed Hope Agenda, the president will easily win his reelection. We need to be extremely smart to get ourselves in the centre of the game so that we are not on the margins again,” he said.

Obi Cubana’s remarks

Earlier in his address, the South-east Coordinator of the City Boy Movement, Obinna Iyiegbu, also known as Obi Cubana, lamented that the region had lost significant ground due to isolationist politics.

Mr Iyiegbu, however, added that the region had equally learnt its lesson on the need to build strategic alliances to serve its immediate and future needs and aspirations.

He regretted that whereas Igbo people were one of the tripods upon which the nation had always rested in every respect, other regions now win presidential elections without the votes of Igbo people due to the type of politics played by the region.

“So, as young professionals and businessmen and women, we have come out to tell our people that we are solidly behind Mr President. We are solidly behind his reelection bid. Ala Igbo has to be taken to the centre.

“We have to be connected to the gas, we have to be connected to the rail, a lot of things we expect from the centre.

“Again, we cannot be fighting everybody or whoever is at the centre of power today because when it gets to our turn, we need support from every zone for us to be able to produce a president of Igbo extraction,” he stated.

Also speaking, the State Director of the movement, Emeka Mammah, and its state Patron, Charles Mbah, commended Governor Mbah for making the movement’s work easier in the state through the “enormity of transformations” underway under his leadership.

They promised to work to ensure landslide victories for Messrs Tinubu and Mbah in the forthcoming general elections.

Connecting to the centre

Until recently, the PDP had enjoyed over 23 years of dominance in the South-east.

The region has a history of near-complete loyalty to the PDP since 1999, when the party produced all governors in the five states in the region, including Enugu (Chimaroke Nnamani), Abia (Orji Kalu), Anambra (Chinwoke Mbadinuju), Ebonyi (Sam Egwu) and Imo (Achike Udenwa).

Anambra was the first state in the South-east to be lost by the PDP when Chris Ngige, the party’s candidate and then winner of the 2003 governorship election in the state, had his election voided by an election tribunal in 2005.

Mr Ngige, who governed for nearly three years, left office in March 2006 after an appeal court upheld his removal and then declared Peter Obi of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) as the winner of the election.

APGA has maintained uninterrupted dominance in the state from 2006 to date.

The PDP lost another state in the South-east in 2020, when Dave Umahi, then governor of Ebonyi State, defected to the APC from the PDP, under which he had won an election in 2015 and a reelection in 2019.

Mr Umahi, who blamed PDP’s alleged ill-treatment of the South-east for his defection, handed over to his successor, Francis Nwifuru, also an APC member.

The PDP’s grip of the South-east continued to grow weak in January of the same year (2020) when after the Supreme Court nullified the election of its candidate and then governor of Imo State, Emeka Ihedioha, and declared APC’s Hope Uzodimma, who came fourth, as the winner in the 2019 governorship poll in the state.

Similarly, the Labour Party (LP) ended the PDP’s nearly 24-year dominance in Abia in 2023, when the LP candidate, Alex Otti, won the governorship election.

READ ALSO:  Fuel Price: Transport fares rise by 10% in Enugu

The PDP completely lost its earlier grip on the South-east in October 2025 when Governor Mbah defected from the party to the APC following an intense disagreement between the South-east PDP and the national leadership of the party.

Mr Mbah joined the APC alongside several other former PDP members in the region.

Political analysts have continued to argue that the South-east has failed to produce a Nigerian president despite agitations for it, due to their prolonged loyalty to the PDP and refusal to connect with the ruling APC at the centre.