Accusations: AESID urges Buhari, APC to call Umahi to order

The Association of Ebonyi State Indigenes in the Diaspora (AESID) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to urgently call governor David Umahi to order so as to avoid crisis in Ebonyi State.

The group was calling the government’s attention to what it called “accusations, threats, harassments, intimidation and open protests being orchestrated” against some elders and leaders in Ebonyi State since the formal defection of governor Umahi from the Peoples Democratic Party to the ruling APP last week.

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In a statement signed and made available to newsmen Sunday in Abuja by its President, Ambassador Paschal Oluchukwu, the group also cautioned that the heads of security agencies in the state should not allow themselves or their men to be used to cause mayhem in the guise of working to unravel and perhaps, prove his false alarms against eminent elders and citizens of the state.

The group urged the security agencies in the state to exhibit the highest level of professionalism and caution in order not to be used by powerful state actors.

“As a body with the passion for growth, economic prosperity and a mandate of holding every leadership in our dear state accountable at all times, AESID once again ask the Buhari-led government, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and indeed, all heads of security formations to not only call Umahi to order but also investigate his attempts to cover up his plots to destabilize our peaceful state with his false alarms.

“This group is sincerely outraged by the latest accusation coming from the Chief Security Officer of the State, Engr. Umahi, wherein he copiously alleged that the former Senate President, Chief Anyim Pius Anyim, and the first Executive Governor of the State, Sen. Sam Egwu, alongside other elders in the state were engaging cultists and some IPOB members to start killings and causing crisis in Ebonyi State in the name of fighting Ebonyi State government and governor.

“Knowing the pedigree and background of these men of repute, especially in helping to make Engr. Umahi emerge as the governor in 2015, AESID hereby condemns this early false and unwarranted alarm raised by the governor.

“The spurious alarms being raised by the governor should therefore be seen as a preparatory ground for perhaps, his future plans to destabilize Ebonyi State and this is why we urge the federal government and all its organs and mechanisms to call Governor Umahi to order.”

The group said it was surprised that Umahi could make “such unsubstantiated, reckless, unfounded and unguarded statements in the media against the elders and stakeholders just to curry public empathy and obviously set up his aides in particular and unsuspecting members of the public in general against our elders and leaders in Ebonyi.

“With the increasing wave of sacks and threats to his appointees who he presumes are loyal to these PDP elders and leaders, we are more befuddled by his pretenses in the media that he is not forcing people to join him in APC.

“A man who has sacked not less than 100 aides who are all loyal to the PDP leaders and elders and dissolved boards, agencies and parastatals headed by the same elders that refused to follow him to the APC cannot therefore pretend that he is not the one fighting his elders and former leaders and thereby, stoking the embers of war in our peaceful Ebonyi state,” it added.