By Adedayo Olalekan

David Nweze Umahi is a man of destiny. He became governor against all odds. For some reasons, his predecessor, who had earlier agreed on a  gentleman’s  agreement that he was going to support his aspiration to succeed him when it was time to leave office, suddenly realized that his son, instead of Umahi, would succeed him.

Umahi

Of course the plan failed. The predecessor then moved on to plan B, nominating a serving federal minister to succeed him.

That too  failed. Umahi, who obviously had no power of his own to challenge his boss, decided to hand over the matter to God. Of course, that God didn’t fail him as He used even the people in the opposition parties to realise  His plan for Umahi such that the once rejected stone became the cornerstone in Ebonyi. He won the election.

Today, God’s plan to transform Ebonyi though Umahi is manifesting. And the people  can attest to it that things have never been so good. Ebonyi has never witnessed the kind of infrastructural development that has happened in the last three and a half years.

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From road construction  and reconstruction, to the building of  modern hospitals and properly equipped,  construction of school buildings and refurbishing the old ones, payment of salaries as and  when due, the transformation goes on.

Meanwhile, the state has never failed to meet it’s obligation to  creditors. One of the highlights of the Umahi sterling performance is in road infrastructure. Perhaps, Ebonyi is the first in the country to have concrete built road. Whereas such road is very expensive, the governor told everyone that  its cheaper on the long run because the concrete road would outlast bitumen road. According to him, if bitumen road lasts five years,  concrete road would last twice if not thrice.

Beyond the call of duty as governor, Umahi, privately, is a generous giver. His philanthropic activities are  said to be on daily basis. Except he does not have, that is the only reason he would not give when he finds someone in need.

Recently, he not only visited, he decided to put all the children of a deceased journalist on scholarship, got the widow a completely new built bungalow and cash gift of N5m. The widow had lost her husband to armed robbery on his way home from an official duty with Nigerian Union of Journalists election in Abuja. His philanthropic does not exclude tribe, religion or gender.

Umahi has several times stunned  not only his party (PDP) members but  also South-East  especially his actions and utterances against the elderly and the ruling All Progressives Party, APC, especially at the centre.

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He was and still the only governor of the PDP and Igbo extraction whose state President Muhammadu Buhari visited to commission projects. It is also on record that it is the only state in the region where the President was honoured with a chieftaincy title. All these made some to conclude that he was about decamping to the ruling party. His reply: “The fact that my party is in opposition does not mean I should always antagonise the Federal Government. Besides, the President is like a father. I don’t need to be disrespectful before I pass my message across to him.”

That said, Umahi has been recognized not only as governor but also for his efforts so far in lifting his people out of poverty thorough different life-changing   projects.

One of such honours came in November 2018  at the Nigeria Small Medium Enterprises Summit and Awards, SMESUMA, where he emerged as the SME Governor of the Year. Also last week, in neighbouring Enugu State, he was honoured with the  chieftaincy title of Ezinwanne Nnewi. These are among several honors that came his way last year.

Milestones

An  achieving governor, Umahi has achieved milestones in several areas. One major achievement under Umahi is projects across Ebonyi. In 2016 alone, Umahi constructed over 20 different roads within the state capital.

In addition, 15km of roads were constructed in all the 13 local government areas in the state from Ohakwu to Afikpo – concretes were also employed. He has rebuilt some federal roads, especially the Afikpo-Abakaliki Road and the Nkalagu Road and has laid an effective blueprint for the construction of the Effium – Otukpo (Benue) road that would open route from Abakaliki to Abuja and boost commerce in the northeastern town in Effium.

The agricultural sector can also be used as defense against any dart of incompetence delivered by the opposition. Positively, this sector benefited a lot in the past years. Billions of dollars was procured and injected into the sector in the form of farmer’s empowerment; where in they were provided with soft loans to further their efforts in output increment.

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It yielded great result to the tone of millions of millions of agricultural produce such as rice, millet and garri. Rice milling was revolutionized through the procurement of parboiling machines for the three rice mills in the state. The Anchors Borrowers programme by the central bank courtesy of the federal government has also been courted by the administration to make Ebonyi the one stops shopping mall for rice production in the country.

*Olalekan is based in Lagos.