30th June, 2020
By Jacinta Nwachukwu
Indigenous people of Ibii community in Afikpo North Local Government Area of Ebonyi have called on the state government’s urgent intervention over the deplorable condition of their roads.
They are also calling for restoration of power supply to the community.
The Ibii community made the call in Abuja on Tuesday.
According to them, the community has suffered abandonment for years, even before creation of the state.
Ebonyi was created in October 1996 from the old Abakaliki division of Enugu State and old Afikpo division of Abia.
Mr Nelson Otu, an indigene of the community residing in Abuja, said the people of Ibii, an agrarian community, had suffered long years of neglect particularly the bad roads, making their daily survival a difficult task.
Otu said the people depended on proceeds from their farm produce for their livelihoods.
He, however, lamented that Ibii road that traverses the community to Afikpo town and the one that connects it to Akpoha community has been in deplorable state for many years.
He noted that the bad road network often limited expected income from their agricultural produce such as rice, cassava and yam, saying their worst nightmares were during the rainy season.
“So, we are calling on Gov. David Umahi to please come to our aid.
“The major road that connects us to the state is so bad; if not for community effort we would have been cut off completely.
“They should do something. We are an agrarian community and our people are finding it difficult to transport our agricultural products to other areas,” he said.
Mr Kelechi Ability, a Technical Assistant to the Governor on Attitudinal Change, said that besides bad roads, “the community also suffers from lack of power supply.”
Ability, therefore, called on the community representatives in the National Assembly and state House of Assembly for intervention.
“We call on the state government to intervene in our plights, especially in the area of electricity and road network as we’ve been cut off from our brother communities in the state.
“We make bold to say that since 1999, PDP has never failed any election in our community, but the height of neglect and marginalisation is heartbreaking,” he said.