By Gloria Ikibah
A former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Rufus Omeire, has dismissed claims of an existing zoning arrangement in the Ideato Federal Constituency of Imo State, describing the emergence of the incumbent lawmaker, Ikenga Ugochinyere, as a product of the people’s choice.
Omeire, who is the senatorial candidate of the Action Peoples Party (APP), made the assertion in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday. 
He said the latest agitation over representation in the constituency was aimed at Ugochinyere, who chairs the House Committee on Downstream Petroleum, warning that any attempt to create a crisis based on what he described as an unfounded zoning arrangement will backfire.
According to him, Ugochinyere was not elected on the basis of zoning but through the collective decision of the people of Ideato Federal Constituency.
He described the lawmaker as “the people’s messenger, a product of our people’s decision to elect a messenger they have confidence in, even while he was in exile.”
Omeire said, “We don’t have zoning, and he can’t be a product of what does not exist. His closest challenger, who was the incumbent, was from Ideato South, went even up to the court, and Ikenga defeated him”.
He explained that he had also sought a second term as an indigene of Ideato South, but was not returned, stressing that there was no established zoning arrangement guiding the constituency’s elections.
“Hon. Austin Chukwukere took over from Hon Mbadigwe, both from Ideato North. The people love Ikenga because he is a light and a messenger who will one day host the Ideato flag at the center of national and international politics, and we can’t exchange an exceptional, young, courageous leader with those who have failed at everything they’ve done in their lives.
“We can’t exchange a robust, over-active, capacity young man with any new beginner. Let me also say it here that we are short changing ourselves in this quest to always change our Reps after one tenure. We can never achieve any meaningful development from the federal like this. We have finally gotten it right with Ikenga so he should continue the wonderful work he is doing,” the statement read.
Omeire also highlighted the Ideato Bridge project as one of Ugochinyere’s major interventions, claiming that the lawmaker “single-handedly convinced President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to approve N26 billion for work to start before the state government wrote to the Ministry of Works to allow them to take over.”
He challenged the Imo State Government to identify a single project it had initiated on its own in the federal constituency.
He said, “until they start the Amanator Isiekenesi Dikenafai Road and finish it, nobody can say they have done anything for us.”
The former lawmaker also criticised those opposing Ugochinyere, describing them as “roadside clowns” who were launching a “kindergarten attack against a passionate messenger that his people love.”
He urged them to abandon what he called their “childish and ridiculous attempt to get attention”.
According to him, “This desperate show of shame was only an act to beg for the extension of their tenure, which has already expired.”
