Okey Sampson, Aba

The Abia State chapter of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has come down hard on the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, accusing the party of inflicting hardship on the people through misrule.

In a statement, Abia State Chairman of the party, Rev. Augustine Ehiemere said the heart of its members bleed daily for the continuous hardship the PDP-led government has brought on the people of the state.

“Our heart bleeds daily for the continuous hardship, suffering and decay in the state, which is making life miserable.

“It is both sad and shocking that, after 20 years of democratic rule, Abia state is the only outh-eastern state, perhaps in Nigeria, as a whole that is worst in all aspects of developmental indices than it was before PDP took over political and economic control of the state.”

Ehiemere enumerated some of the factors that have pulled the state in her present backwardness to include “Imposition of persons that lack leadership qualities as leaders, god-fatherism, refusal to allow people’s vote to count, insensitivity of politicians to the plight of citizens, civil service degradation, abysmal neglect of maintenance of basic amenities and rising corruption.”

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The APGA state chairman said whereas other states in the South East have extricated themselves from the monstrous god-fatherism, PDP in Abia State has retained it as tradition and style of governance, and added that the consequence is the persistent strangulation and draining of public fund to service the insatiable greed of the god-fathers and their agents.

“This trend has become more chronic under this government. We do not know how we can describe a political party that has continued to plunder funds meant to develop the state and improve the living conditions of Ndi Abia and her residence.

“We cannot see any justification for starving workers and pensioners for periods ranging from seven months to one year and some pensioners owed 18 months.

“This starving of civil servants has impacted negatively and frustrated economic activities and families.

“The number of school dropouts is rising from time to time because their parents can no longer sustain them.”

APGA said the state government’s repeated excuses of shortage of allocation from the federation allocation were unacceptable.