Onyekachi Nwaebonyi is the senator representing Ebonyi North Senatorial District and also the Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate. In this interview, he speaks on South East support for President Bola Tinubu ahead of the 2027 general elections, as well as the impact of ongoing infrastructural development in the region, EVINCE UHUREBOR reports

Quite a number of leaders from the South-East have said that the zone is standing on the mandate for 2027, and why should ordinary Nigerians who are the ones to vote also join the mandate platform?

I must state categorically that everybody in the South-East, both old and young, have seen reason to stand solidly behind President Bola Tinubu. So, in summary, I can tell you that we are all standing on his mandate and the reasons are not far-fetched. If you look at what is happening in the South-East today, it’s only APC that can win election in the zone.

And like I said, the reasons are not far-fetched. If you look at the inception of the Fourth Republic since 1999, the people of the South-East have religiously voted for a party that time known as Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and we had no infrastructural development.

You know that that after the Civil War of 1967 to 1970, a lot of infrastructure went down in the SouthEast but with President Tinubu coming on board, and even before now, President Muhammadu Buhari, when he came on board awarded the Second Niger Bridge. It is not only that he awarded the contract, that contract was executed. Today, we have an alternative Niger Bridge. PDP didn’t do it for the people of South-East for 16 years despite the fact that they religiously voted for the party.

Now, after Buhari’s administration, Tinubu came on board. For the very first time, an Igbo man was appointed minister of Works in the person of Senator David Umahi. That is a big trust on the side of the West towards the people of South-East. And after giving us the Works ministry to head, you can also see that some of the major roads in the South-East, for example, the Onitsha-Enugu road, which have been in a sorry state for decades, are being reconstructed.

I called the controller of works in the South-East and said the Onitsha– Enugu road is done 77 per cent, meaning that before December, one lane of that dual carriageway will be completed. If you move to the Enugu-Port Harcourt road, you can see that before now, from Enugu to Port Harcourt can take you about five to six hours due to the sorry state of that road.

But as I’m talking to you now, following the intervention of Mr. President, one lane of the Enugu-Aba-Port Harcourt road is done, meaning that you can now do Aba from Enugu in less than two hours. And you can do from Enugu to Port Harcourt in less than three hours. So, because of the massive infrastructure development going on in the South-East, the people of the zone have resolved to stand on the mandate of President Tinubu.

One of the campaigns promises the President made to the people of the South-East is industrialization. In your estimation, has he been able to do this in the last three years of his administration? Number two, he also said that he will ensure that there’ll be no discrimination or marginalization of the South-East under his administration, citing some of the things he did while he was governor of Lagos State. Would you say that the zone has been favourably represented in his government, either through appointments or through development?

The President, in the last three years, has done well for the people of South-East. Yes, he promised to industrialize the South-East, but you will agree with me that industrialization will not happen if you don’t have the basic infrastructure. And what is the basic infrastructure in this context? It is road network.

Road network remains the number one agent of development. It is when you have roads that you can build industries. It is when you have roads that you can bring other forms of development. So, President Tinubu is living up to the promises he made to the people of South-East, by giving us good road network, which is number one.

And he’s talking also more of giving us additional state. I won’t go into that until it happens but I know very well that President Tinubu is a democrat. He is a man who believes in fairness. He is a man who believes that nothing is right unless it is right. You can see that all the geopolitical zones in the federation have six states. The NorthWest even has seven states.

Only the South-East has five states. So, these are some of the promises though he didn’t make it expressly, but we met him as our leader and from his body language, we believe strongly that that will come but when they will come is what we don’t know.

The belief is that by now, those promises should have come to fruition. How will the people trust the President, when he is yet to fulfill his promises three years down the line? Let me start by asking you a question. What is industrialization?

Will you talk of industrialization without a road network? If you talk of industrialization, the first step towards industrialization is the road network, and the President has lived beyond our expectation by awarding the roads I mentioned here.

If he can do that in the first four years, probably, when he gets a second term, we can talk of mountain industries, but the basic steps towards industrialization is what the man is doing. For you to site an industry, you must have a road leading to the industry. So, the road network is a foundation any form of industrialization.

You keep saying that a lot of people in the South-East want President Tinubu; how will you prove that the people of the South-East have overwhelmingly endorsed the President?

I’m a politician and I’m following political developments in the South-East. Even though INEC has not given us a go ahead to start campaigning, if you go to the South-East, you can see what the City Boy Movement is doing.

You can see the acceptability of the group. If you come to a Ebonyi State, where I come from and where people are seeing all this infrastructure development, I can tell you that 95 per cent voters in the state will go for APC because of what President Tinubu has done.