THE 2023 gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State, Mr Titus Uba, on Friday returned to the country after about two months in Germany where he was flown to for medical treatment for an unrevealed ailment.
Uba arrived Nigeria via the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, from Frankfurt, Germany.
Uba is reported to still be recuperating in Abuja and will proceed to Makurdi, the Benue State capital on an undisclosed date.
Media reports with pictures showed how Uba, who is also the Speaker of the 9th Benue State House of Assembly was received by a multitude of PDP supporters in busloads from Benue State on Friday at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
A statement by Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker, Wuese Orshi, indicate that Uba is now fit and ready to resume duty as Speaker.
The statement also said Uba is also set to “kick-start his gubernatorial campaign tour across the state.” Orshi, however, did not specify the date his principal will arrive Benue State to resume duty.
Uba’s return and assurances by his CPS that he will commence work after New Year festivities though framed to debunked speculations making the rounds that Uba opted to be discharged from hospital against the instruction by his German doctors to be placed on bedrest abroad for at least six months in order to overcome what unimpeachable sources inside Uba’s guber campaign organisation confided in National Record is an ailment with clear symptoms related with stroke.
But Uba and his political minders were said to have chosen his leaving hospital bed in defiance of the 6 months bedrest as that implies that the 2023 general elections would have been conducted in his (Uba’s) absence.
The implication of this is that the PDP would have been forced to either substitute Uba with another candidate or go to the polls with him in hospital, a scenario that would have definitively imperilled Uba and PDP’s chances at the polls.
At the moment, the PDP has not been able to flag-off its guber campaign while the APC has over the past period since the commencement of campaigns been actively touring the state.
Uba’s sickness and consequent prolonged two-month medical tourism, National Record observes, may have already dampened the morale of his supporters.
Before Uba’s sudden return on Friday, some PDP stakeholder were already agitating for his replacement.
There were camps rooting for either the incumbent Deputy Governor, Engr Benson Abounu, or Prof. Dennis A. Ityavyar, as Uba’s substitute; a probable cause of Uba’s ‘hasty’ return.
An inside source in the PDP governorship campaign disclosed to National Record that the party has set up a strong medical team to closely monitor and manage the health of Uba in the course of the campaign and would not for political motives endanger the candidate’s health.
