May 6, 2017
By Ijendu Iheaka
The Ebonyi state Governor and Chairman, South East governors' forum, Mr Dave Umahi has called on Abia state to lift Ebonyi to enable it do greater things as Abia is doing.
Umahi said that Abia being the father of Ebonyi is indebted to the younger state and so should help it attain greater heights in development.
Ebonyi was created out of the old Abakaliki division of Enugu state and the old Afikpo division of Abia state in 1996.
Umahi who was on a three-day working visit to Abia state with his executive council members made the call after flagging the reconstruction of the failed Port Harcourt road in Aba.
He said that his team was in Abia to understudy the development efforts of the state governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu.
"We are on a working visit with my team of over 25 members of my executive council. This morning we saw the mushroom technology and it was so amazing to us.
"We also saw a poultry with simple technology which I think is the way to go.
"Another area we are understudying is the Abia IGR. We have about 14-man committee that will understudy that through out tomorrow", he said
Umahi commended Ikpeazu for the number of roads he is constructing in Aba and Umuahia especially in Aba where he, Umahi, said he lived between1990 to 1994 and suffered from effects of flooding.
He said that with Ikpeazu's industrial programmes, he was securing the future of Abia people and noted that any governor who would secure his people's future was a governor for today and tomorrow.
The Ebonyi governor who said that he once was the flood control engineer for the famous Ndiegoro erosion site in Aba noted that he had once lost sleep over Aba's flooding problems.
He, however said that he was happy to see that Ikpeazu had dug a big trench at the Ife-Obara basin to collect the flood waters of most roads in Aba adding that the city's days of sadness from flooding were over.
Umahi thanked Ikpeazu for the plans he has hatched to revive all moribund industries in Abia state through a Public, Private Partnership scheme with the Chinese stressing that it would reposition Abia for good.
He said that it was wrong to say that PDP governors would decamp to other parties because doing so would not make them work better for their people.
"Everywhere we go today, Abians will be waving at him because they are happy with him. He is not vying for President but all we are saying is that he has a two tenures and let no man interfere with that," Umahi warned.
Governor Ikpeazu said that the historic visit of Umahi who has worked as a flood control engineer in Aba has brought much blessing on Port Harcourt road.
He said that his plan to deliver the road in 18 months had been interrupted by Umahi's insistence on using cement technology on the 5.7kilometer road.
"He told me that water has sat on that road for over 16 years and so the sub-soil is going to coarse and unstable and will compromise the asphalt put on it soonest.
"He said to me that for governors who agree the way to go is to build roads that will outlive our tenure because we don't want to return to same project within the last month of our tenure.", he said.
The governor said that God had provided for the reconstruction of Port Harcourt road saying it will be built with six lanes and a dedicated (Bus Rapid Transit) BRT lane for commuter buses.
He said that the government has entered agreement with the Setraco construction company to pay for the road in three equal tranches.
Ikpeazu promised to deliver the road in 18 months stressing that his God is bigger than the cost of the project.
No comments:
Post a Comment