The Centre For Equity And Eradication of Rural Poverty has called for the appointment of a senior civil servant from Ukwa East and Ukwa West Local Government Areas as Permanent Secretaries in the Abia State Civil Service.
It should be recalled that the Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, recently appointed 24 civil servants from the State Civil Service to serve as Permanent Secretaries.
In an open letter to the Governor, the Executive Secretary of the Centre, Sir Don Ubani, said:
“The recent appointment of 24 Permanent Secretaries by you, Sir, Governor Otti, without any one from Ukwa-West Local Government Area and any from Ukwa-East Local Government Area, has gone a long way to reinforce the lack of hope and confidence in the sojourn of the Peoples of Asa and Ndoki in Abia State. This penchant for Deliberate Insensitivity and Total Disregard for the Peoples of Ukwa-East and Ukwa-West should better stop.
He said that the plight of the Peoples of Ukwa in Abia State had, at best, been disgusting and distasteful, adding that in more than sixteen consecutive years, no iota of development from the State Government had been contemplated for the Peoples of Ukwa.
The Executive Secretary further said:
“Ukwa is the World Capital of Worst Roads. Apart from the Police Offices at Akwete and Obehie and the presence of the Nigerian Military at Asa High School, Asa, an occupation which has forcefully rendered the Labours of the Heroes Past of Asa People to be in vain, there is hardly any Government presence in Ukwa land. There is no place in Nigeria that has as many unemployed Youths as in Asa and Ndoki.
“Yet every month, the State Government receives 13% Oil Derivation Fund from the Federal Government of Nigeria, only courtesy of the Functional Oil Wells in Ukwa-West Local Government Area.”
