Ex-Ebonyi Commissioner Dumps APC, Vows To Remain In Opposition To Umahi

Former commissioner for information in Ebonyi State, Mr Abia Onyike, has dumped the All Progressives Congress, and pitched his tent with the Peoples Democratic Party following the joining of APC by Gov Dave Umahi.

Onyike, in a release entitled ‘Why I am Going Back To PDP’, said he was leaving his former party because of Gov Umahi’s ‘dictatorial, totalitarian and autocratic leadership style in the governance of Ebonyi state-a situation that has unleashed mass poverty and mass impoverishment on Ebonyi citizenry’. He accused the governor, among others, of empowering a certain political bloc in Afikpo South LGA ‘which operates the MoreCanBeDone killer-squad and his failure to set up a panel of inquiry to investigate recent killings in the area’.

Expressing fears about rising cases of lawlessness in the state, the former commissioner said, “A new wave of killings and loss of lives is gradually unfolding in the state in Ezza North and Ezza South LGAs. The political space is already fouled by antagonistic propaganda being fuelled and targeted against those wanting to toe a different and independent path of political party affiliation.”

He also accused Gov Umahi of seeing public office as a platform for personal and family aggrandizement, adding that, “He is self-willed, self-opinionated, self-serving, self-centered and selfish. Those who make up the PDP in the state now are tested leaders and like-minded patriots who are committed to the genuine development of Ebonyi State, hence my decision to identify with them.”

He vowed to remain opposed to Umahi’s government because of “His lawless approach to governance and administration, such as appointing the state accountant-general from outside the civil service to facilitate looting of public treasury, running the state from 2015-2019 without permanent secretaries; his commitment to selfish and useless white elephants which serve as conduit pipes for looting public funds.”

He explained that, “Umahi built unnecessary projects, such as the N7bn Ecumenical Centre, the N6bn Shopping Mall and new Government House, Ochudo City. Within nine months as governor, he amassed illegal wealth scattered all over, and built more than 20 mansions in his village at Uburu with a private stadium, aircraft landing facilities, hotel annexes and cinema complex with the asphalting of the compound sprawling in several hectares of land.”

He also berated lack of potable water in the state, alleging that Ebonyi is the only state without a water board in Nigeria, and expressed fears of a possible return of the guinea worm scourge.

On gratuities, Onyike said the governor had impoverished Ebonyi citizens ‘through the evil policy of non-payment of gratuities to retired workers since 2015; payment of half salaries to Ebonyi civil servants; denial of promotions since 2015, including the liquidation of the democratic ethos in the local government system in order to facilitate looting of council funds with impunity’. He also accused him of introducing punitive taxation policies targeted against landlords, artisans, traders and rice dealers, stating that ‘80% of the funds coming to the state enters Umahi’s pockets’.

He claimed non-natives of the state were already vacating the state because the Umahi administration was seizing or destroying their belongings without compensation, adding that, ‘while Ebonyians are hungry, Gov Umahi has been sending trailer loads of rice to northern chiefs in his desperate ambition to become president in 2023’.

Onyike further accused the governor of appropriating construction contracts to his cronies. In his words, “The Abakaliki Indigenous Contractors’ Forum which had been in operation since the incipient days of the return to democracy has been rendered moribund by Umahi; his refusal to patronize the Abakaliki Building Materials market jeopardized the circulation of money in the state. He has personally taken over the mining of solid minerals in the state. He downgraded the state-owned Ebonyi Hotel and converted it to his Ekubaroha Youths outfit. Then his personal hotel-Osborne La Palm hotel became the official hotel in the state. He transformed the ongoing new Ebonyi Hotel facility near Nkwoachara to the Department of Engineering of EBSU but today, nothing is happening there.”

On the state university, the former commissioner said, “Umahi reduced the funding of EBSU from N250m to N100m, started threatening salary deductions for lecturers and then unilaterally and illegally proscribed ASUU and NASU. Umahi abolished scholarships in Ebonyi, and made a policy of zero employment in the state civil service. He always preaches that people should go to the private sector, but when he became governor, he brought all his blood brothers to join his government and chop. He also attacked the judiciary workers in Ebonyi State by forcefully changing their leadership. He had factionalized the trade unions in Ebonyi State.”

Condemning how the governor has been allegedly attacking some Ebonyi personalities, Onyike said, “Anybody who criticizes the governor is ruthlessly dealt with. Gov Umahi seized my monthly pensions and gratuity. Then he instigated his appointees to initiate several court cases against me. The PDP in Ebonyi State must be used as a liberation movement to rescue Ebonyians from the stranglehold of Gov Umahi, whose inordinate ambition is to hand over power to his proxy with his son as the next speaker of Ebonyi State House of Assembly, come 2023.”