Osita Okechukwu (left) and President Bola Tinubu
Members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), South East, pressure group, South East Renewal Movement (SARM), have called on President Bola Tinubu to call the Minister of Works, David Umahi to order or face the possible risk of losing the support or votes of the people of the geopolitical zone, in 2027.
The group made the call following the allegation that “Umahi is toying” with the contracts on Federal Road projects in South East, especially that of the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway.
National Coordinator of the group that made the allegation, Mr Osita Okechukwu said that it was regrettable that the only critical road the Southeast benefited from the nationwide Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme (RITCS) “is being sabotaged by our own big brother, Engr. David Umahi, Minister of Works.”
Okechukwu said that the completion of the construction of 110 kilometers Enugu-Onitsha Express Road had been going on seamlessly under the MTN Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme (RITCS), “until Umahi’s unfair and unnecessary stop work order.”
Dave Umahi
But, Umahi simply dismissed the allegation by saying, “shame on them.”
However, SARM said that the hardship faced by motorists on the highway was because of the stop work order, alleging other numerous heart rendering ghastly motor accidents, one of which was the avoidable Oil Tanker tragedy that claimed many lives penultimate week few kilometers to Enugu, including a whole family coming back from South Africa.
They called on the President to conduct a thorough investigation to confirm or rebut their investigation that the slowdown of work on the road is hampering diligent mobilisation of voters for the President in the Southeast as the 2027 presidential election approaches.
According to Okechukwu, “Indeed some of our political opponents are insinuating that Umahi is playing President Tinubu’s script, which I know is big blatant lie. The traducers site instances when Umahi had not only issued stop work order, albeit had altered the scope of work by deleting the 9th Mile Flyover, Solar Light included for security reasons and host of uncountable bottlenecks. Before God and man, one could not fathom the main reason behind our brother’s infractions on this RITCS project carefully designed to avoid the cumbersome budget circle.”
He added that SARM was alarmed and had to question where the minister, who for over one year, had no money to fix the ordinary collapsed bridge at the neck of Enugu-Port Harcourt Road, sourced alternate funding when he threatened in a press statement to revoke the MTN’s N202 billion Enugu-Onitsha Express Road goodwill contract?
Okechukwu said: “Mr President kindly intervene to stop this unholy assault on the integrity of Ndigbo, their stereotype-emotional vortex, unnecessarily being raised, and their economic development. A paradigm progress will aid the harvest of the winning votes SARM is packaging to gazette Mr President’s goodies record, like the South East Development Commission (SEDC) that will address Ndigbo’s hunger for critical infrastructure like electricity, roads, ICT development.”
