By Uche Mbah
The Ebonyi State Government said the Governor, Dave Umahi, is innocent of allusions that he is complicit in the deaths of citizens of the State in the hands of terrorists, describing such report as false.
There have been reports that about 1150 residents have died in the South-east between the years 2020 and 2021.
According to the media report (not theThe Source),
the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, INTERSOCIETY, said Ebonyi State has a large per cent of the killings, ascribed to Security Agents and terrorists.
They, allegedly, accused Ebonyi State Governor of being complicit in the killing of his own people.
Umahi is one of the people from South east that has declared for the presidency under the auspices of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
But in a statement signed by the Special Assistant to the Ebonyi State Governor on Media and Publicity, Francis Nwaeze, Thursday, Umahi described the report as “lies infested concoction”.
“Ordinarily, we wouldn’t have bothered responding to this lies-infested concoction but we have elected to make a few clarifications to save discerning minds from being misled by the agents of mischief”, the statement said.
“First, apart from the Ishielu unfortunate attack which was alleged to be a reprisal for an occurrence of years ago, there were no other incidences of herdsmen attack leading to death in Ebonyi State within the period under reference.
“Second, there were, also, no incidences of killings of innocent citizens orchestrated by Security Agencies anywhere in Ebonyi State within the same time lag.
“Third, Governor Umahi at no point aided nor abetted the killings of innocent citizens of Ebonyi State and Ndigbo, rather, Governor Umahi in collaboration with other leaders of South-East worked tirelessly to ensure Security Agencies did not avenge the killing of their colleagues in the course of agitations in the region.”
According to the statement, “…we enjoin the general public to disregard the hoax which is an attempt by the disgruntled opposition to score cheap political points targeted at denting the towering political reputation of Governor Umahi and sow a seed of discord between the Governor and Ndigbo as well as Nigerians in general.”
