Abia Alliance Tasks Ikpeazu on Transparency, Welfare of Workers

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo

A group of concerned Abia State businessmen, technocrats and professionals has urged the state Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, to show more transparency in the management of the state finances, saying the current “opaque nature” of governance leaves much to be desired.

The group under the aegis of Abia Freedom Alliance (AFA) made the call in a statement made available to journalists in Umuahia, the state capital, highlighting the six years of Ikpeazu administration and 22 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) “stranglehold” on the state.

The statement entitled: ‘Okezie Ikpeazu at 6: Why we must rise to reclaim our state from political opportunists’, was signed by the group Coordinator, Prince Uzor Nwachukwu, and four other strategic executive members, Chief Joe Ezearu, Chief Allen Chunks Wogu, Bishop Bernard Nwaogu and Dr. Jude Ohuche.

According to AFA, “The lack of transparency in the Ikpeazu administration has continued to manifest in the high cost of projects in the state and the secrecy in the award of contracts,” adding that Abia people have not enjoyed democratic governance under PDP in the state.

Though it did not provide comparative contract figures, the group noted that projects in Abia State “are costing multiple of what similar projects in other South-east states cost even when the topography and other environmental conditions are similar.”

While citing the Osisioma flyover, Port Harcourt Road, Ifeobara Basin and countless other projects as “ready examples” of highly inflated projects, the group insisted that it needed to be explained “why Abia State is paying most for a kilometre of road renovation across the Southeast.”

To show transparency, the group challenged Ikpeazu to make known “the debt profile of the state, how much has been borrowed in the last six years, how were these funds channelled, and if the purported projects are such that will benefit the future generations who will ultimately bear the cost of the repayments.”

The Abia Freedom Alliance lamented that non-payment of workers’ salaries, retirees’ pensions and other genuine entitlements of hard working and diligent state civil servants and pensioners have continued to be the problems of Abia people, adding that it was sheer miracle that they have continued to survive.

“We stand in solidarity with the workers and retirees at a time of great injustice against them. It is only miraculous that they have continued to survive and retain their faith in the state despite years of insincerity and treachery by a government that ought to have made the welfare of the state workforce and our senior citizens its critical priority,” the group said.