The Senator-elect for Anambra Central Senatorial District, Uche Ekwunife, has explained how she has come under intense pressure from Igbo elders to renounce her mandate for Senator Chris Ngige, who is also from the district,for the purpose of having a South Easterner assuming the position of Senate President in the coming 8th Senate, as a way of balancing the political equation across the geo political zones.
Ekwunife won the Senatorial seat in the March 28, 2015 National Assembly election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.She defeated Victor Umeh of the All Progressives Grand Alliance and Ngige of the All Progressives Congress.
Ekwunife, who is a member of the House of Representatives, told journalists in Abuja that she had since been under pressure to renounce the mandate for Ngige.
She said their excuse was for the purpose of a Senator from the South-East to emerge as Senate President in the coming 8th Senate.Ekwunife vowed never to succumb to the elders pressure.
She said, “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 pressurising 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.”
