Ebony Governor Suspends His Commissioner For Taking The State Back To Dark Ages

Ebonyi State governor, David Umahi is angry with his Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy  Matters and Rural Development, Barrister Samuel Okoronkwo whom he accused of taking the state back to the dark ages.
Governor Umahi, who angrily suspended the commissioner while declaring open the ITF programme in Abakaliki, also disbanded the state’s Committee on Employment.
“This administration from day one has been built on the principle of justice, equity and fairness. In some of our programmes, we do equality of Local Governments. But in  this kind of empowerment, we do equality of wards, so what I expected to see here would have been for them to borrow a leaf from what we are doing to empower about 3,000 of our women and youths.
“We are doing this and everybody is happy. We are called to build Ebonyi State where nobody will say I am from North or South or Central. I think we are succeeding. Anybody that is going to take us back to the dark ages will be resisted.”
The governor directed that the most senior officer in the ministry to take over from Okoronkwo later on Friday evening.
A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Emma Anya, quoted Umahi as saying: “the Commissioner for Local Government is hereby suspended from office effective from now. And the highest office , a civil servant, should take over and be attending Exco until further notice.”
The governor called on the youth of Ebonyi  who are jobless in other parts of the country to return home and find something meaningful to do under his government’s  youth-oriented programmes.
“Every Ebonyi youth in other parts of the country especially Lagos should please come back home; we are ready to create jobs for them.
“A day is coming when nobody will be willing to seek political office because of the current reality.  One day, there will be no kobo from the Federation Account so it high time we started thinking outside the box.”
The governor said that his administration would create over 100,000 jobs for the youth and women especially in the agriculture sector
He said that the state now focused mainly on mechanised system of farming because “agriculture without technology is death.”
Governor Umahi however promised the trainees of financial assistance to enable them set up their businesses after acquiring   necessary skills from the programme.
Earlier, the ITF  Area Manager (Enugu and Ebonyi states), Mrs. Linda Egbonu, said the programme was organised to develop the mindset of the youth in areas of entrepreneurship and skill acquisition. [myad]