Ebonyi State Government & Vendetta Against Non-Indigenous Residents of Abakaliki 

The worst has been designed to happen in Abakaliki by the Government of Hon. Francis Nwifuru. The designs are in two phases one of which is the deliberate demolition of buildings in Abakaliki numbering 555 ㅡ this number of which 55 only belong to Ebonyi people. 500 belong to people from other states of the Southeast.

Landmark commercial buildings shall by this gruesome design be crushed. Another design is to rename all the streets bearing names of people and towns not from his clan in Ebonyi State. Such streets have been penciled down. One wonders if this is what is needed to take Ebonyi people out of poverty and primitive rural settings. Gov. Nwifuru is behaving as though his basic aim of becoming a governor is to chase people away from Abakaliki who aren’t indigenous to Ebonyi, but whose forebears and themselves contributed to the development of Abakaliki to its current look and economic state.

The most recent of such demolition spree is the marking of buildings for destruction from Udensi Roundabout to Onuebonyi Junction, and from Vanco to Spera-in-deo. According to the governor, he wants to construct additional double lanes of roads on both sides. Udensi to Onuebonyi Junction shall have 20 metres of expansion on both sides from the drainage of the existing lanes, while Vanco to Spera-in-deo will be 17. After this demolition, Abakaliki is sure to sprawl with no good public building in the city centre passage view as all the buildings that currently make the city attractive have been marked for malicious demolition. 

Abakaliki as we all know is one city that is empty of people and the population keeps receding by the day due to bad economic policies of the state government. One can conduct a census on number of vehicles plying the streets and major roads like the two now penciled for implausible expansion. What’s the grouse of Mr Governor where investors that came to develop Abakaliki are? What’s the problem?

This latest demolition exercise shall further the deserting of Abakaliki and this time, commercial activities shall go down completely and one wonders what gain the governor will make from such a misguided infrastructural policy. The governor should stop accepting malignant proposals or opinions of people from his place who think outsiders came and snatched their ancestral lands in the days of yore. Every piece of earth these hardworking residents built on was properly acquired. Why now greeting them with vendetta? Is this how to make Abakaliki boisterous with commercial and corporate activities? After undertaking this destruction, will you still expect investors to come to Abakaliki and invest?

Gov. Nwifuru should remember that Ebonyi people also have buildings and pieces of earth in the states of these investors he’s now marking off for punishment over nothing. He should not commit to actions that’ll bring reprisal upon Ebonyians who are legitimately hustling outside the state. His actions and inactions as a governor have far-reaching effects. They’re capable of stoking interstate economic acrimony, discord, or even fisticuffs. He should focus on meeting Ebonyi people at the point of their needs and withdraw from actions capable of severing the commercial relationship people of the state have built over the years with others outside Ebonyi. Why renaming streets to people from your clan when that’s not the problem of the majority of the people of Ebonyi? Why this deliberate plundering action targeted at mostly the people from outside Ebonyi and others from the other parts of the state? Is this part of the equity agenda umbrella under which he campaigned in 2023? 

However, may it be known to the people of Southeast that this malicious action that Gov. Nwifuru is taking against property owners from outside Ebonyi isn’t a reflection of the aspirations of Ebonyi people, but one hatched singlehandedly by Gov. Nwifuru and his in-house allies who have been grabbing people’s lands in the guise of an effort to recover ancestral lands from the hands of the buyers who aren’t from the Izzi clan of Ebonyi State. Let it also be on record that not all the Izzi are in support of this. The majority of Ebonyi people both at home and in the diaspora are not in cahoots with the governor’s violent approach towards governance.

Written by Sir Chika Nwoba, KSC.

Please note that this is not the opinion of ASIWAJU MEDIA