Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State
Umahi sacks DC Coordinators, suspends civil servants from Effium over lingering communal crisis
[From CHINEDU NWAFOR, Abakaliki]
Ebonyi Governor, David Umahi, on Tuesday announced the suspension of all civil servants from Effium community of Ohaukwu LGA of the State over the lingering communal crisis in the area.
The Governor also pronounced the sack of Coordinators of the two Development Centres from the area from office, while salaries of permanent Secretaries from the area were suspended.
Umahi said that he would approach the State House of Assembly for the way forward on the Chairman of the Council and the two House of Assembly members from the area.
He said that the government cannot sit and watch them receiving salaries which goes in sponsoring killings and destruction of the peopels properties.
The Governor made the pronouncement during a security meeting organised at the instance of the State’s founding fathers, Christian Association of Nigeria, Bishops and other stakeholders.
The meeting was sequel to the November 3, 2021, abduction of three Engineers at site of the ring road project at Effium community as well as the attack on the security agents who went on a rescue mission in the area last Sunday, which resulted to the killing of two policemen.
Apart from the recent development in Effium community, the lingering crisis in the area has claimed hundreds of lives and properties worth millions destroyed.
Umahi said though the perpetrators of the killings and destruction in the area were funded from outside, some stakeholders of the area within the State, were also culpable in funding the crisis.
“Recently, five construction workers on the state’s ring road which passes through the area were killed by unknown people and these workers who know nothing about the crisis were here to help the state,” Umahi said.
He said that the suspects arrested over the incident confessed that the workers have been killed and buried and the government in pacifying the affected families, sought to know the location of where they were buried, but the hoodlums ambushed the security team who went to the area and officers had been reported killed or missing.
