House of Reps member and Senator-elect for Anambra Central Senatorial District, Hon. Uche Ekwunife says she has come under intense pressure from some Igbo leaders to surrender her mandate for Senator Chris Ngige in order for the South-East to produce the next Senate President.
Ekwunife won the March 28 National Assembly election in the district on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, after defeating Ngige who ran under the All Progressives Congress, APC, and Victor Umeh of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA.
The current member of the House of Representatives told journalists in Abuja on Thursday that ever since the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared her winner of the election, she had been heavily pressured to renounce the mandate for Ngige, who was tipped to emerge Senate President had he been re-elected to the red chamber.
It is believed that with the defeat of the former Anambra governor at the polls, the South-East lost the opportunity of producing the Senate President in the coming 8th legislative assembly. No ranking senator-elect from the zone is of the APC, which has now emerged the majority party in both chambers of the National Assembly.
Nonetheless, Ekwunife vowed never to succumb to the South East elders’ demand stressing that the peoples’ mandate she enjoys is more important to her than any political appointment.
Her words, “Yes, there has been immense pressure from various quarters in the Anambra Central Senatorial zone and by extension, Anambra State, on me to renounce the popular mandate given to me by the people of the senatorial district for somebody (Ngige) I defeated flatly for reasons of power sharing they are not even sure of.
“Even if they are sure of whatever position they want the person they are pressurizing me to step down for, I will never take that from them because the mandate, as far as I am concerned, is far, far bigger than being sacrificed on the altar of power sharing,” she said.
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