By CHARLES IWUOHA

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and a former Commissioner for Information in Ebonyi State, Chief Abia Onyike, has opposed the alleged plan by the state governor, Engr. David Umahi, to impose his stooge on the people, saying that Ebonyians would decide his successor through the ballot during the forthcoming February and March general elections this year.

Onyike added that Umahi “ruined the fortunes of the young state and is about to bequeath a horrible legacy of maladministration which has resulted in the abject poverty and hopelessness of the citizenry.”

The party chieftain who stated this in a statement on Sunday, January 1, 2023, regretted that under Umahi, “the once vibrant and resourceful state has been run aground. It is the 4th poorest state in Nigeria today and the most wretched in Southern Nigeria.”

According to the statement, the state now suffers from an astronomical debt port-folio of over N160 billion borrowed from multiple financial institutions. Such a terrible debt overhang may enslave our children yet unborn if nothing drastic is done to rescue the state and redirect its affairs.

“This unenviable profile resulted from Governor Umahi’s strange and autocratic leadership style wherein the institutions of state were personalized and privatized, just as government policies were implemented without due process and in utter disregard for extant rules and regulations of the public service.”

He explained that the Governor's alleged administrative recklessness has bred lawlessness and political brigandage which, in turn, fuelled uncontrollable communal disturbances and wanton destruction of lives and property in the state.

The former Deputy National President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) stated that Ebonyi State under Umahi, has known no peace since he mounted the saddle of governance in 2015 because of his divide-and-rule tactics.

“After leading the state on this regrettable and inglorious path of self-inflicted destruction, Governor Umahi is not yet satisfied. He is now intoxicated with power and wants to carry his luck too far.

“He usurped the powers of the vital organs of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) by imposing his surrogate, Hon. Francis Nwifuru, as the sole candidate, a public pronouncement he made during a funeral ceremony in Okposi, in Ohaozara LGA several months before the party primaries.

“Having realised that Ebonyians have rejected his self-imposed candidate, Gov Umahi recently resorted to casting aspersions on the candidates of opposition political parties in the state. His incoherent aspersions on the person of the PDP Governorship Candidate, Dr Ifeanyi Chukwuma Odii, is meaningless because there is nothing he can do to change the popular choice of Ebonyians and that is the beauty of democracy.

“His often quoted comments on candidates he would have preferred as opposed to others who eventually emerged from the party primaries tend to project him as an anti-democratic element who works hard to undermine the unity and solidity of the political parties positioning to take over power in the 2023 general elections. Umahi is talking as if he has the constitutional powers and privileges to determine those who will succeed him.

“The fact of the matter is that Ebonyians have resolved to regain their political freedom by taking steps to rescue the state from further slide into destruction and destitution. Ebonyians are moving en-mass through the instrumentality of the forthcoming elections to recover the governance of the state from Umahi’s failed experiments.

“The people of Ebonyi state today are geared towards enthroning a new leadership based on capacity, antecedents and proven track records. Wherever the leader comes from has become immaterial at the moment. Umahi must respect the will of the people,” the statement read in part.

Onyike stated that Ebonyians have come to realize that Umahi as a Governor, constitutes the problem of the state and any candidate he supports for the 2023 elections stands to be rejected by the people of the state.

“Herein lies Governor Umahi’s current frustration and desperation. Let him stop his grandstanding and squarely face the concrete realities of the situation on ground,” Onyike added.