Chijoke Agwu, Abakaliki and Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
Chairman of South East Governors Forum and Governor of Ebonyi, Chief David Umahi, has accused some leaders from the zone of sabotaging ongoing construction of the Second Niger Bridge by the Federal Government.
The governor, who did not mention any of the persons involved, said the development was responsible for the slow pace of work at the site.
This is just as he stated that imbalance in the political appointments made so far by President Muhammadu Buhari across the zones did not make him a bad leader.
Umahi who lamented that he had been so widely criticised because of his unapologetic stance against the castigation of the president, insisted that he would continue to support and defend him no matter the level of criticism coming his way.
Speaking when he received Minister of State, Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Uchechukwu Ogah with the Presidential Salt Development Initiative team at Government House, Abakaliki, the governor maintained that the President was committed to the development of every region.
“Let me first of all thank Mr. President and the Chief of Staff for initiating this project. People criticise us because we say look, do not criticise Mr. President if you are our appointee or any governor. They castigated me for that but I have been unrepentant in that.
“I have been quite close to Mr. President. Mr. President is a very nice man. There may be imbalance in terms of political distribution among the regions but that does make him a bad man. He is a very good man if you get closer to him. When you talk about the Chief of staff, I will say he is from the South East. He is the man that is the go between us and Mr. President in the execution of the Second Niger Bridge. Every week he sends me progress report, and even when our people go to stop the work, he will call and be lobbying me and the Anambra governor to talk to our people to allow it to go so that they can finish it before the end of their tenure. So, it is something that is very heart-warming. The money we got for the Akanu Ibiam Airport, we sat in his office to do the memo to Mr. President.’’
Meanwhile, the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) has raised the alarm over terrible condition of the Imo Airport’s runway, just as it called for an urgent attention to have it repaired.
Director Policy and Standard of the commission, Mr Alex Elikwu, raised the alarm yesterday when he led a team from the commission and Ministry of Aviation to inspect the phase two and three of the ongoing expansion of the Airports Apron project.
He observed that the runway is full of portholes which he said has made it fall short of internationally accepted standard.
On the expansion of the Apron, Elikwu said he was not satisfied with the level of work done considering the amount of money released for the contract.
“We are not satisfied with what we are seeing here today, it fell short of our expectations because out of the N 677 million contract sun, a total of N 560 million has been released to the contractor which constitutes 82 Per cent of the total sum. He said the quality of the job done so far also fell short of standard.”
He also raised worry over the contractor’s absence during the inspection after he was duly informed by the airport Manager of their visit.
The Airport Manager, Rejoice Ndudinachi, said the apron expansion was an abandoned project when she took over management of the airport.
“I don’t supervise the contractor directly but the ministry of aviation. I also informed him that inspection team from the Presidency will visit the site so I don’t know why he is not here”, she said.
She also appealed to government to help connect the airport to national grid, adding that since she came in, she has been running the airport with a generated power.