Umahi entrenches reward in political appointment process — Commissioner

The Ebonyi commissioner for Youths Development and Sports, Charles Akpuenika, on Wednesday said that Gov. David Umahi has entrenched reward into the state’s political appointment process.

Akpuenika made the disclosure in an interview with our reporter in Abakaliki on the complaints from some former political appointees of abandonment by the governor.

The Anambra-born commissioner said that the complaining former Local Government Areas Development Centre Coordinators were ill-informed and were trying to tarnish the governor’s image.

“I have been participating actively in Ebonyi politics and can authoritatively say that development centre coordinators who delivered votes in their polling booths were retained and are still serving.

“The governor made it clear that one’s ability to deliver votes in his or her polling booth guarantees the chances of being retained in appointment.

“This is the best approach in the appointment process because most people answer stakeholders and appointees but cannot win in their polling booths.

“The people who are be useful during elections are offered appointments and this has eliminated the concept of ‘monkey dey work, baboon dey chop’,” he said.

He said that though Umahi had left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he left indelible marks that could not be erased in the party both at the state and national level.

“He constructed the biggest PDP secretariat in any state of the country and delivered 100 per cent electoral victory for the party, from his days as the party chairman, deputy governor and governor.

“It is also instructive to note that his properties were burnt in 2007 in his hometown because of his commitment to the PDP,” he said.

Akpuenika urged the citizens to realise the real reasons for Umahi’s defection to the All Progress Congress (APC) which was to place the south-east in the front burner of the nation’s politics.

“The entire country has attested to his infrastructure transformation of the once-derided Ebonyi and he has publicly acknowledged the APC-controlled Federal Government’s role in attaining such feat,” he said.