UMAHI SAYS TINUBU HAS FULLY INTEGRATED THE SOUTH EAST THEN PREDICTS A 2027 SWEEP OF ALL FIVE STATES

Minister of Works Dave Umahi says President Bola Tinubu has fully integrated the South East into the federal government and will collect far more votes there in 2027 than he did in 2023.

Umahi made the claim on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics on 4 October 2026, in an interview that mixed appointments, a proposed sixth state and open campaign talk. He said the region is not asking to be treated better than others. It wants to be treated fairly.

“The president has fully integrated the South East. Remember, we had the Naval Chief. Now we have the Air Force Chief,” he said. “The good intention is that the president has taken the entire nation as one united family.”

He thanked the National Assembly for work on an extra state for the zone, which currently has five states while other geopolitical zones have six. “We are talking about getting the sixth state in the South East. It is a work in progress,” he said. “Equity demands that we should have what other people have.” He did not name the proposed state. Separate political arguments have pushed Anioma, carved from Delta North, as one option. That proposal is not settled.

Umahi contrasted the current cabinet with the last administration. He said he would not blame the South East for how it voted in 2023 because, in his view, the region was not fairly treated then. “Now the story is totally different. I am a Minister of Works. We have never had a Minister of Works before. We have a Minister of Foreign Affairs and a Minister of Science and Industry. We are very happy with the appointments we have gotten.”

The electoral claim went further than the integration argument. Asked whether roads and appointments would become votes, he refused to guarantee a clean sweep, then offered one anyway. “I will not tell you whether we win the five votes of the South East or not, but the President is going to harvest a lot of votes in the South East. It can never be the same like it was before.” In the same appearance he added, “My faith is telling me we will win the five states. I am working for it. I am explaining to our people.”

He told South East residents to stop playing regional politics. “It does not help us. As a region, we should be able to have a handshake across the nation.”

The infrastructure defence was aimed at critics who say he has pulled federal jobs toward his home zone. During an inspection of the Calabar to Abuja corridor in Benue, he said social media claims that he had cornered projects for the South East were made without the published list of jobs approved under Tinubu. “I am not on my own. The President is my boss. So where will he be when I corner all projects to the South East?” He said the zone might not rank first, second or third in project share, but it would not be last.

He has repeatedly cited the Abuja–Abakaliki–Enugu corridor, the Eke-Obinagu flyover, a 23-span bridge, a 33-kilometre concrete road and the 61-kilometre Lokpanta–Enugu road as evidence people in the zone can see. Section Two of the Calabar–Abuja highway, covering the Ebonyi, Benue, Enugu, Kogi and Nasarawa axis, is part of the wider Trans-Sahara corridor the ministry is selling as a link between the South East, South South and North Central.

The political gap is obvious. Integration, in Umahi’s telling, means appointments, a service chief and roads. A sixth state is still only a discussion in the National Assembly. Winning all five South East states would reverse a region that voted heavily against the APC in 2023. Umahi is arguing that the appointments and the roads are enough to close that gap. He has not produced polling to support the prediction. The Presidency has not commented on the interview.