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A front line candidate for the 2023 Governorship election in Ebonyi State, Professor Benard Ifeanyi Odoh has urged Ebonyi indigenes resident in Anambra State to play very active roles in determining who takes over from the incumbent government in the State, urging them never to allow the destiny of the State to remain in the hands of desperate politicians who he accused of plundering the State’s resources.
Odoh, governorship candidate of APGA and former Secretary to the State Government who made the revelation yesterday in Awka while addressing Ebonyi indigenes under the auspices of the Great Ebonyi Indigenous Forum, GEIF , Awka, Anambra State revealed that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN allegedly released a total of a whooping N8Billion Naira as Agric Loan to the present administration in Ebonyi but that no single farmer benefited One Naira from it.
According to him, for the average Ebonyian, “The election (2023) is not like the elections that were done before. The difference is between life and death now.”
Odoh who resigned in 2018 as SSG over what he described as “bad policies” of the government said over 3, 000 Ebonyians are in prisons in Lagos State and other different parts of the country and many more others abandoned as hawkers in the streets of major cities in the country.
According to him, “when I was SSG to Ebonyi State, I told the Governor that instead of building flyovers everywhere, let’s empower the poor farmers, our brothers hawking in Lagos State and other places, but the system refused”.”Today, over 3000 of our brothers are in prisons in Lagos State. This is very bad. Over 4000 workers were retired from civil service in Ebonyi, no replacement till today”.
“Today one barrel of crude oil is $105 but one barrel of palm oil is $350. In my administration, we will be producing oil locally and even export to other countries because we want to create value for our agriculture”.
He further expressed worry that, “Civil service is dead in Ebonyi State as there is no pension assuring that in his first four years in office if elected, the administration will employ additional health workers and at least 2000 teachers.
“We will mobilise them (the teachers) to go to rural areas and teach our children and our administration will add incentives. Let’s assume that those in urban areas are earning 80,000 Naira, those in rural areas will be paid 100,000 Naira.”
In his remark, a staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Dr. Cletus Nwofia who assured of the group’s support to Odoh appreciated him, saying Odoh was the brain behind the formation of the Ebonyi association in Anambra while he lectured in UNIZIK and commended him for his boldness to present himself to the people for election.”As a forum, we had earlier mobilized some of our people to go home and register for the PVCs and many of them complied. We also encourage them to go and get them and be ready to return home to vote. We know your antecedents for our people which you manifested even while in the University here. We will give our unalloyed support to you and pray that you will succeed so that you can indeed change the narrative in Ebonyi State”.
Odoh was accompanied on the visit by his Deputy Governorship candidate, Dr. Nkata Chukwu, some State House of Assembly candidates and a host of other supporters.
