The biggest gift voters can give Enugu people this weekend is to join hands with the Obidient Movement, which drives the Labour Party, to vote out the controversial Ebeano political confraternity, the state branch of the National Network of Evangelical Ministers (NNEM) has declared.
“The Ebeano cult is like cancer which has been metastasizing in Enugu since 1999”, the ministers stated in an unprecedented political statement this morning signed by the state chairman, The Reverend Peter Anikwe, the secretary, Pastor Ephraim Ugwu, and the public relations officer, Pastor Ifeanyi Nnaji.
Accusing the Ebeano group of tremendous violence and greed on an industrial scale, the ministers noted that the only time Enugu has witnessed substantial progress since the return of democracy in 1999 was from 2007 to 2015 because “Governor Sullivan Chime heroically threw the desperadoes and bandits out of political relevance”.
The religious leaders expressed shock that outgoing Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuany brought the controversial confraternity back into the political process, despite the stiff opposition of Enugu leaders including Father Ejike Mbaka of the Adoration Ministry.
The religious ministers claimed that it was in revenge against the rehabilitation of the “Ebeano cult that the electorate in the Enugu North senatorial district gave only 46,948 votes to Governor Ugwuanyi but a whopping 104,492 votes to Okey Ezea of the Labour Party in the February 25 National Assembly election, thus becoming the only governor contesting for the Senate who lost his polling booth, polling unit and ward in the whole country”.
The NNEM expressed the hope that the “remnants of the Ebeano Cult will be flushed out in this week’s governorship and state assembly elections”, recalling how the people in the Coal Camp layout of Enugu city last month chased away a serving Senator with sustained and energetic derogatory songs when he came to campaign for reelection.
The evangelical ministers praised Catholic worshippers for thwarting the efforts of a handful of their leaders and asserted that “Enugu Catholics are toeing the heroic path of Catholics in Latin America famous for their liberation theology, Catholics in the Philippines led by Cardinal Sin who in 1986 drove away the corrupt and evil Marcos regime from power, and Catholics in Haiti who in 1986 also drove away the evil Duvalier regime out of power, as well as Catholics in Poland who helped to not only end the General Jarulziski communist regime in the 1980s but also made Poland the first country in Europe to overthrow communism, leading a few years later to the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe but also everywhere else in the world, except Cuba, Laos, North Korea, China and Vietnam”.
The ministers advised the PDP candidate to ensure that he utilises the alleged N13 billion he borrowed from Fidelity Bank and the N3bn from Polaris Bank to finance Pinnacle Oil and Gas Company for which the loans were granted, rather than politics.
“All Enugu people”, they continued, “are appalled at the desperation he has been exhibiting for grabbing power, as though his life depended on it.
“We believe there is life after March 18”.
