Days after Senate Chief Whip, Orji Uzor Kalu, exposed the inefficiency of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led government in Abia State under Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, a protest has been staged in Aba against the former governor.
Kalu had, during the electioneering for last Saturday’s bye-election into Aba North and Aba South Federal Constituency seat, drawn the people’s attention to the failure of leadership on the part of the governor to develop the state.
He had also specifically pointed at the abysmal lack of capacity by the Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, to attract a single development project to his Senatorial district in his sixteen years in the Senate.
Although the PDP candidate was declared winner of the election, thugs allegedly sponsored by Governor Ikpeazu, on Monday, disrupted commercial and private activities in Aba under the guise of protest against Kalu.
Kalu had spoken about misgovernance and decadence in the state administration wherein the state government was appropriating to itself federal government’s projects in the state.
In addition, kalu had slammed the state government for its abysmal failure to pay 27 months salaries and gratuities to workers and pensioners respectively, among others.
He has also lambasted Abaribe, who is believed to be working in cahoots and/or conspiratorial alliance against him, for spending 16 years in the Senate and pocketing his senatorial district’s intervention projects (ZIP) with nothing to show in his area.
According to Kalu, Abaribe couldn’t even build a road leading to his village in Umuekwensu.
Kalu and the duo of the governor and Abaribe had been locked in a bitter political battle over the Aba North and Aba South bye-election, which, according to a report by Elombah.com was highly contested and “characterised by thuggery, violence and rigging sponsored by the PDP.”
The report said that “despite the fact that the PDP Candidate was declared the winner of the election, Governor Ikpeazu is still jittery over the exposure of the quantum of atrocities committed under his leadership, hence the need to sponsor a protest to discredit Senator Orji Uzor Kalu.”
The medium recalled that that the Abia State government had placed a ban on any form of protest in Abia.
The report also recalled that Senator Kalu had campaigned day and night and visited all the wards in Aba where he was received by the mass of the people amid pomp and ceremony.
He was, as reported, significantly given a tumultuous welcome during his campaign visit to Ariaria international market.
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