President Bola Tinubu’s recent visit to Enugu State has been touted as having the capacity to boost his chances of getting votes from the South-East in 2027.

A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, said on Sunday that if Tinubu could fulfill his promises of bringing investors to the South-East, which he made during the visit, he would have boosted his chances of getting the region to vote for him when he seeks reelection in 2027.

President Tinubu was in Enugu State on Saturday in his first official working visit to the South-East, during which he commissioned projects initiated by Governor Peter Mbah, including 30 smart green schools, 60 completed type 2 primary health centres, and the 19-kilometre Airport-New Haven–Bisalla and Okpara Square roads.

Tinubu, at a meeting with South-East stakeholders during the visit, reiterated that the removal of petrol subsidy was necessary to build the nation and protect the interests of future generations.

Furthermore, he pledged that his administration would support the development of the Anambra Basin – which is estimated to hold up to 1 billion barrels of oil and 30 billion cubic feet of gas – as a significant energy reserve.

Tinubu also committed to completing the Eastern Rail line connecting Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, according to a statement by presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga.

Commending Tinubu for the visit via a statement he personally signed, Okechukwu, a former Voice of Nigeria (VON) Director General, said his commendation was predicated on tripartite grounds.

“One is that the state visit accorded Mr President the golden opportunity to assess the unfortunate infrastructure deficit in the South-East geopolitical zone,” Okechukwu said.

“Secondly, it also obliged Mr President interaction arena with the leadership of our zone.

“Thirdly, his uncommon pledge to embark on Standard Gauge Railways in Eastern Corridor like Western Corridor, Gas Pipeline and modernisation of security apparatus in the region,” he said.

Okechukwu said nothing would boost the APC and Tinubu’s electoral chances in the 2027 general elections more than shopping for investors and implementing the projects mentioned by President Tinubu.

“Methinks these pledges and their implementation will boost Mr President’s electoral fortunes in the South-East geopolitical zone in 2027 presidential election,” he said.

In a similar vein, an ex-presidential spokesman, Doyin Okupe, described Tinubu’s visit to Enugu as a game changer.

“The visit of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to Enugu on Saturday is a major game changer,” Okupe said in a statement on Sunday in Lagos.

“Any objective observer can easily discern President Tinubu’s open heartedness and unrestrained affection for the South-East.

“He (Tinubu) spoke openly and candidly from his heart and made very significant commitments for support for developmental projects in the south east,” he said.

Okupe, who was Director-General of Peter Obi Presidential Campaign Council in 2023, said the South-East, without a doubt, deserved the attention and support of any fair-minded president, adding that any Nigerian of goodwill would commend Tinubu’s genuine good gestures towards the South-East.

“Without any iota of doubt, the age-long mantra, which was very dear to the late Igbo leader, Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu, that ‘the absence of an east-west political alliance is a potential existential threat to the unity and stability of Nigeria’ is an all time truism,” Okupe said.

“I will personally urge Mr President, while working tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of the masses, to continue to build bridges across the nation for our political stability and peaceful coexistence,” he said.

Nigeria News Source recalls that Tinubu, who won the 2023 presidential election with 8,794,726 votes, got his least votes in the election from the South-East. He polled 127,605 (or 5.8 per cent) of the total of 2,187,599 votes recorded in the South-East, coming second behind the candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, who polled 1,960,569 (or 89.6 per cent) votes in the region.