The Senatorial Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Enugu North Senatorial District, Ambassador Ejike Eze, has declared that Nsukka People are dismayed by the poor performance of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State in the past seven years.
Eze was a diplomat with specialty in intelligence, security and diplomatic protocol.
He served in the Nigerian Embassies in Germany, Ghana, Cuba and Portugal.
He is in the race to represent Enugu North Senatorial District at the Senate.
He said Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi was running to represent Enugu North Senatorial District on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after a woeful performance in seven years to add to the 12 years he spent in the House of Representatives where he never uttered a word on the floor of the green chambers.
Eze affirmed that he was in the race to challenge poor governance and godfatherism in the state and bring governance near to the people of Enugu Senatorial District.
He said beside his litany of woes, Ugwuanyi had begun another round of deception by commissioning new road projects just a few weeks to election and wondered when such road projects would be completed.
The former envoy asserted that the governor made promises, on assumption of office, to many communities, to create autonomous communities for them but his promises never materialised.
The APC senatorial candidate disclosed in a media interview that the feed back he got from his campaign tour of the senatorial district was the people’s disenchantment with the government over lack of infrastructure, lack of innovative ideas among others on the part of the Ugwuanyi led-administration.
“The dorminant issues raised throughout my campaign so far has been that of bad governance. These are the key issues they are looking at. There is no gain saying that the present government claims that they have put Enugu in the hands of God but in every aspect of governance, you cannot rate them above 30 percent.
“They did what they thought was okay but they failed in so many other areas. For instance, I had a radio interview programme sometime ago and a woman called in to say she retired from government work three years ago and she has not gotten her gratuity or pension”, he said.
“I am told that even workers in Enugu State are owed pension for ten years in some government departments so people are talking about the well being of the citizenry and lack of infrastructure.
When I asked why do we sell fuel in Enugu, N240 and Nsukka, N340, they said because the road from 9th Mile to Nsukka is so terrible. That no trailer wants to pass through that road and because of this, they put more money on transportation and that has made the price of fuel in Nsukka higher than most parts of Enugu State.
“The issue of infrastructure is there and now the government, because another election has come, they think they can always deceive the people. Now if you go to all the roads, they are breaking all the roads, claiming to be building and constructing new roads.
In all parts of Nsukka now, they have promised so many people roads. They are building roads for every dick, tom and harry and I asked them will they finish this network of roads they are constructing before February 25 election?”
“You see these things are deceit. I ask again if they had money to be building these roads, what have they been doing in the past seven years? And now that the election is at hand, they are doing panicky projects here and there”, he said.
He alleged that “the governor is going round the churches, promising them money and all manner of things.
“The people are talking about lack of infrastructure, lack of innovative ideas. Look at the dirt in Nsukka. Nsukka is a university community and a university community is an international community.
“As you enter Nsukka, the first thing you encounter is dirt. Just leave Opi Junction, drive some distance, you will see heaps of rubbish. A government that cannot even clean the environment, clean his house and a lot of things. Nsukka people are really dismayed about the performance of the governor”.
Continuing, he said: “look at Ogige Market and what it looks like in comparison to what Gov Dave Umahi did in Abakaliki in Ebonyi State. Ogige Market should be turned into a modern shopping mall so that when you enter Nsukka, you will see mordenity. For eight years, we have had our son in government and nothing has changed in Nsukka.
“If you talk about human capital development, I wrote a memo telling the governor that Enugu Senatorial District has never produced a federal permanent secretary since 1999 and most of them that come to Abuja as permanent secretaries from other states, come from transfer of service but he did nothing of the sort”.
