Akwa Ibom State governor, Umo Eno, on Tuesday, said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would complete two terms in office.
Eno, who was elected on the platform of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), made the statement during the flag-off of the Akwa Ibom segment of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project.
“President Tinubu will be here for eight years. We must support this project and align with the national agenda,” he said.
Eno’s comment came at a time when former Vice President and PDP presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, is initiating plans to unite the opposition parties to oust Tinubu in 2027.
Recently, Atiku met with former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai, Labour Party’s Peter Obi, and others in Abuja, where a plan for a broad opposition coalition against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was announced.
However, PDP governors on Monday dissociated the party from any coalition or merger plan.
“The PDP will not join any coalition or merger,” Bauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed said while reading the communiqué of the PDP Governors’ Forum after a meeting in Ibadan. “But the party welcomes individuals or groups willing to join it.”
The forum fixed 27 May for the party’s long-awaited National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting and scheduled the national convention for 28 to 30 August in Kano.
It also constituted committees for zoning and the convention and named Deputy National Secretary Setonji Koshedo as acting National Secretary, dismissing the claims of Senator Samuel Anyanwu and Monday Udeh-Okoye to the position.
PDP Board of Trustees member Bode George backed the governor’s position on the coalition talks and opposed another Atiku candidacy.
“Atiku cannot be a PDP presidential candidate. There is zoning that must be respected. The North had eight years. The South should have eight years,” George said.
The PDP has yet to react to Governor Eno’s remarks.
