Governorship Aspirant Seeks Orji’s Resignation

Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba, a governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Abia State says Governor Theodore Orji has failed woefully and should resign from office rather than stand for re-election.

  “Having failed for three and half years, it is too late to convince the people,” Ufomba said, while exchanging views with newsmen at his Umuogele Ntigha in Isiala Ngwa North country home, Monday.

  He described the governor’s rush to execute some projects as “panicky moves” that amount to waste of state resources, saying that  “those projects would not be durable”.

“Orji has failed and should resign. They should leave this peaceful change (from PDP to APGA) to take place,.”

“We are waiting for them in April, next year, when people of Abia will vote them out because you can not fail in three and half years and in the last quarter you are making panicky moves to execute projects.

“We have seen three years of disaster. We got to a stage when people were being kidnapped but people kept passing the buck to communities, their leaders and the people. It is too late to convince Abians,” he said.

According to him,  if voted into office, he would set up a machinery to determine any inappropriate deployment of state resources by past governors and recover any private investment such resources were diverted to.

Ufomba said he would serve for only one term in office if elected governor, saying  that four years was enough for him fix the problems currently ravaging the state on account of lack of visionary leadership.

“I am here on a rescue mission. I have come to correct the ills ravaging the state. I will serve for only one term. I will not go for second term,” he said, adding “I am not paying lip service to change in Abia. There is need for change. We are tired of beautiful excuses for failure. Abia people don’t deserve a weak government,” he continued.

Expressing optimism on his victory at the polls next year, the industrialist said “Abia people can’t entertain fears over our ability to deliver on our promises. We know that Abia people need change and we have given them the road map. The major thing we intend to do is that government must drive the economy. For now, there is no direction.”

Ufomba, who served as a Special Assistant to Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, also gave an insight into why he resigned from that government.

According to him, he worked tirelessly to reconcile the Governor and Ukwa/Ngwa political bloc, which was against the governor’s second term bid.

He said after brokering a truce, an accord was signed to the effect that Governor Kalu would hand over the reigns of power to an Ukwa/Ngwa man, but the accord was “sabotaged” and he had to leave the government because “I would not be part of the deceit of my people.”

He said as an Adviser, he conducted an audit of abandoned projects and discovered that about 735 projects were abandoned in the state by the three tiers of government, stressing that his report on how to realize the projects, which would have given Abia a quantum leap, was dumped.