By Beverly Ehia, Abakaliki
The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Ebonyi State, Prof. Benard Ifeanyi Odoh, Thursday, accused the state government of contributingto insecurity.
He said 80 percent of the insecurity witnessed in the state was caused by the government.
This was as he noted that the political alignment was the major source of the issues in the state, citing the crisis in Ohaukwu as an example.
He disclosed this during interaction with journalists in Abakaliki.
He said, “What has happened in Ebonyi is a situation where vested political interests have been pursued at the expense of the common man.
“One thing that I’m committed to doing is dispensing social justice. It doesn’t matter who is involved. Once we dispense social justice, much of the tension in the State would begin to reduce significantly.
“If you visit many of these communities where we are having crisis, you’ll discover that over 80 per cent of the causes are all linked to political involvement.
“Political leadership should pursue agendas and policies that would bring investments into the State, but they are busy trying to create tension so that they can put in people who would be subservient to their authority and this is what gives rise to the problem.
“As a Governor from next year, my focus would not be on petty communal leadership puzzle. As I speak to you now, many Communities who have elected town unions did that at the instructions of the Government, not based on who the community prefers as a leader.
“Society that is created that way must have tensions, there must be people who would say no to this, and this is what causes the tension. One of the crises started at the motor park, the two persons involved were appointees and elected members of the same Government, so you can see the link and the relationship.
“Once these things are curtailed, we’ll not have situations where weekly or monthly you have tensions in our communities and clashes in almost all parts of the State.
“We are going to work day and night to create a conducive economy in our communities so that our people can go to work and keep busy with activities. Once they are busy, they can make choices that suit their peculiar community needs, these things would diminish.
“First thing we are going to do is to have a sustained audience. We’ll listen to each of the communities. Let us get to the root of the cause of these issues, we’ll take a compassionate and dispassionate position on the matters there. Anyone who is found being part of the crisis, the steps we’ll take of course would be that we are not approaching from the point of bias.
“No investor would come to a destination where we have this kind of tension now, because business owners come to make a profit and not to cause trouble.
“Surveillance is going to be the key. In every part of the state, we are going to have a surveillance team. Even in the capital city, we are going to have an organized, officially supported security system, cleanly dressed with vehicles that are equipped with telecommunications gadgets.
“If there’s a crime, with the aid of the radio message, we’ll cordone off all the boundaries and deal with it effectively. We are not going to encourage thuggery, our people need to be respected and treated with honor.
“Once we do all of these, you will see that we’ll have a society where people would go about their normal business without harassment.”