South-East Loses N10bn Every Sit-At-Home Day — Umahi
Chief Dave Umahi, Chairman of the South East Governors’ Forum and Governor of Ebonyi State, said on Sunday evening that every sit-at-home the people of the region observe costs the zone around N10 billion.
Since the arrest of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the organization has declared a sit-at-home every Monday until he is released.
Umahi claimed that the zone lost over N10 billion in each of the sit-at-home orders, and expressed disappointment that the order was harming the region’s economy.
The governor spoke at a state dinner in Abakaliki, the state capital, in honor of Tukur Buratai, the former Chief of Army Staff and Nigeria’s Ambassador to the Republic of Benin.
He stated that the state would not support incessant sit-at-home calls, and that any civil servant who was absent from work to observe sit-at-home would face disciplinary action.
“Evil will continue to thrive if good people keep quiet; we must make Ebonyi State very exceptional by rising to the challenges. When we shout true federalism, I say I agree, but it should be administrative restructuring, Ebonyi State is not in support of any state collecting VAT, we are in support that FIRS should continue to collect tax and share.
“We are destroying our economy, the sit-at-home is not happening in South West, the North is not sitting at home, each time we sit at home, we lose over N10 billion in our economy, so Ebonyi State will not sit at home any day, so I charge the commissioners to go all out and ensure that civil servants come to work, and for the markets, I will personally be in the markets tomorrow, anyone who is no longer interested in owning shops can go home.”
The governor while urging the nation’s Leaders to speak up against dissenting voices that are capable of polarizing the nation said he is open to debate with any PDP governor who feels he has delivered more democracy dividends to his citizens than the APC-led administration in Ebonyi State.
“People are taking special interest in Ebonyi State and her governor, positively and negatively but it is very important to be in the news than for you to say there are 36 states, you will name 35 and say what is the other state, we have aborted it, we are now a state to reckon with and we have no apologies.
“When I say I have no apologies, you can talk everything about me but you cannot say we have not delivered and so when people open their mouths in PDP to talk about APC, they should know that I belong to APC and if they like, let PDP offer any of their best governors to come for debate with me and I will defeat any of them, not to be talking and talking.
You don’t sit on people’s sweat and resources and be talking nonsense. “We have no regrets taking our people to the centre. We have always played at the centre, we are not playing party politics, we are playing politics that will be an advantage to our people, criticize me, no problems but we need resources, we need friendship with the centre.”
Responding, the visiting Ambassador to the Republic of Benin, Ambassador Tukur Buratai commended Governor David Umahi on his infrastructural transformation of the state
