NATIONAL ASSEMBLY: I’m eyeing senatorial seat –Chris Ngige

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, has said he is considering contesting the Anambra Central Senatorial seat on the platform of the All Progressives Congress in the 2019 general elections.

Ngige disclosed his ambition on Monday at a briefing at Obosi in the Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State.

Ngige represented the Anambra Central District in the Senate between 2011 and 2015 after defeating a former minister of Information, the late Prof. Dora Akunyili, of the All Progressives Grand Alliance in the 2011 general elections.

Ngige, who claimed he was under pressure from both Anambra and South-East leaders to contest the poll, said he would declare his official position in two weeks.

He said, “The people who are pressurising me are my constituents; the people of Anambra State and some prominent people from the South-East.

“We are all in agreement that we need to go and better the milieu of the ninth Senate. Many people feel that the present eighth Senate has been engulfed in a battle of supremacy with the executive and they feel that some of us who have tested the executive and legislature should go back. The Senate is not for kindergartens.

“I am considering it, I am consulting and the result of my consultations will be made known in a fortnight.”

Reminded of allegations that the APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari had not been felt in Anambra State and the entire South-East, Ngige described the allegation as deliberate falsehood and a campaign of calumny from the opposition.

He said, “The Federal Government of Nigeria has been generous to the people of the South-East; I am from the South-East. You see the President promised us infrastructure development and the South-East has not been left out.

“When you talk about infrastructure, you are talking about transport, road infrastructure, air infrastructure, sea, health and power infrastructure. In all these areas, we (South- East) have not been left untouched

“If you drive from Enugu now to Awka, you will see the work that is ongoing on the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway; if you go there and see the thickness of asphalting work, you will marvel.”

He added that the construction of the second Niger Bridge had reached 48 per cent.