Ebonyi Group Urges Voters To Reject PDP, Tackles Nwoba Over Call For Double Standard

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Samson Nwafor

A pro-good governance group, Ebonyi-First Vanguard, has called on Ebonyians to reject the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) and its spokesman, Nwoba Chika Nwoba, over what it described as an “inciting call” for public officers and citizens to “play double standard and disappoint the government.”

Addressing journalists in Abakaliki on Thursday, the Director-General of the group, Hon. Monday Eze, said Nwoba’s statement was a redefinition of “treachery and treason as election strategy” and had no place in Ebonyi’s democratic space.

Eze said the group noted with dismay Nwoba’s alleged maligning of the State Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters, Hon. Uchenna Stephen Igwe, and his call on elected officials to deliberately sabotage government.

“Inasmuch as Ebonyi-First Vanguard supports holding government and public officers to account, we do not encourage fabrication of lies against innocent government officials; and incitement of public officers and the citizenry to deliberately sabotage the government as those tantamount to insurgence. We hereby condemn in totality the villainous and unpatriotic call of Chika Nwoba and the PDP,” Eze said.

The Vanguard DG argued that government was a collective institution that delivers services to the people, not a political party.

“Government is simply the collective instrument through which roads are built in Abakaliki, salaries are paid in Ikwo, hospitals run in Onicha, and schools function in Afikpo. Nwoba’s call is not opposition; it is a betrayal of the people,” he stated.

The Group also debunked allegation of Local Government and Chieftiancy Affairs, Hon Uchenna Igwe, describing them as fallacious.

Eze sai ward councilors were trained for agribusiness and given valedictory empowerment to be re-injected into farming and food production, not for personal use, adding that all government transactions in Ebonyi are electronic, “so there is no room for signing a higher sum and receiving less sum.”

He further stated that Governor Francis Nwifuru’s “legacy achievements” in infrastructure, postgraduate scholarships, gratuity arrears, youth grants, health sector reforms, new universities, and civil service recruitment “speak in higher decibels” than opposition propaganda.

On LG autonomy, Eze explained that with financial autonomy in force, LG chairmen implement programmes based on their financial capacity, which he said accounted for the delay in paying the agribusiness start-up capital to councilors.

He also clarified that the 171 ward councilors “cannot be dissolved” but will vacate office at the expiration of their tenure, as provided by the Constitution.

Eze urged public officers and citizens to shun Nwoba and his principal, insisting that “the allegiance of every Ebonyian is to the Constitution, not to the vaulting ambition of one individual.”

“Patriotism demands that Nwoba and his cohorts contest ideas, not tell lies and scheme to cripple the government. The ballot box, not the betrayal of duty, is how democracies change governments,” he said.

Eze concluded thus: “Ebonyi people should not let the PDP and Chika Nwoba redefine treachery as strategy. Ebonyi people must isolate this brand of politics and affirm that in Ebonyi, we may disagree, but we do not destroy. We compete with vision, not with vandalism of the state.”

“Reject PDP and Chika Nwoba. Reject sabotage. Choose Ebonyi,” Eze added.

Nwoba, a spokesman of the opposition PDP in the state recently made a video through his Facebook handle where he made some wild allegations against Ebonyi State government and some of her officials.