The move to draft Governor Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State into the presidential took a new turn yesterday as members of the Hausa and Yoruba communities living in the state in separate addresses to the governor urged him to drop all procrastination and head for the presidential race.

The Hausa community, led by Alhaji Abdulwahab Abdurahman, who stood for the Sarkin Hausawan, recounted Governor Nnamani’s pioneering effort in giving the Hausa and non-indigenes of the State a sense of belonging by including them in the governance of the state, adding that at times of social upheavals in Nigeria the governor had protected them from molestation, and had provided refuge for Moslems fleeing other parts of the South East.

Alhaji Abdulraham told the governor that of all the people campaigning to be president, none could approximate his qualities, adding that the community had come to enjoin him to enter the presidential race.

“Ebeabo is today a household name in Nigeria. Please, please, join the presidential race. We will not leave here until you give us an answer”, the group told the governor.

Leading the Yoruba Community in Enugu State to the Government House, the leader of the community, Ade Adeyelu told their host that having lived in Enugu all these years, they were convinced that his track record puts him head and shoulder above everybody vying for the number one seat in Nigeria.

Adeyelu said: “Permit us to state that since our sojourn in this state, no government that we know of or can recollect, has affected the lives of the people of Enugu State as your administration has done.”

Noting that the governor has proved the most detribalized Nigerian known to them, the Yoruba community said they had watched all manner of people in the presidential race, adding: “We have searched fruitless for somebody who has the same pedigree of leadership, the same Midas touch, the same ability like our son (President Olusegun Obasanjo) among these people.”

“Your Excellency, the Yoruba community wants you to go up there and exhibit your well-known dance steps. The dance must not end here in Enugu State. We want you to carry it to the whole of Nigeria; we want you to do for our country what you have done for us in Enugu State; we want you to contest the presidency of our fatherland, Nigeria”, the Yoruba group implored the governor.

The indigenes of Imo State living in Enugu State also visited to urge the governor to join the presidential race without delay. Led by Chidi Ofoegbu, the group said they had always wished Governor Nnamani were their governor back home in Imo State.

Reeling off a list of the governor’s achievements in the past eight years, including some foreign direct investments and reform of governance in the Enugu State, the group said they had watched the governor give hope to the hopeless by creating employment and empowering the people, qualities they said Nigeria’s next president must possess.

“We have taken a decision to appeal to you, we want you to go up to Nigeria and do what you have done in Enugu State because when we talk about democracy, we talk about you. We want you to replicate this nationally”, they group said.

In his response, Governor Nnamani told his visitors that he would rather see them as members of Enugu community but of different ethnic extractions.

Expressing gratitude for the kind words from his visitors, he assured them he would give their request deep thought and come up with an answer that would be beneficial to Nigeria within the context of continuing the vision of President Olusegun Obasanjo, who he described as the father of modern Nigeria.

Paying glowing tribute to the president whom he described as an icon of modern democracy, he recalled his sterling performance in his outing as military head of state with massive infrastructural development of Nigeria. His second coming, the governor noted, has marked a watershed in the country’s development in the governance reform and integration of Nigeria into the global community.

He pointed out his accomplishments in the telecom sector, the consolidation of our fiscal sector, leading to Nigeria producing for the very first time some of the biggest banks in Africa today.

He praised the president for being the driving head that terminated the cancer of colonialism in Nambia, South Africa and other parts of the continent and recalled his current effort to get Nigeria in the security council of the United Nations after successfully reforming the Organisation of African Union into the African Union, AU.

He said his primary concern is articulating ways to sustain these reforms by the Obasanjo administration, adding that he would consider the requests made to him to run for president as a challenge to slip his legs into the president’s larger-than-life shoes.