The residents of Umuokomiri Obehie village in Ukwa West LGA of Abia State have thanked Governor Alex Otti’s government for building a road in the neighborhood.
Speaking through Chimeko Ezekiel and Ben Nwokagbara, they said that the completion of the road project, which had been left unfinished by the State’s previous administrations, would spare them from abject poverty, open up new business prospects, and bring real development to their villages.
The Umuokomiri people criticized the State’s past administrations for abandoning them to live in squalor despite the region’s oil production.
They expressed remorse for the previous Abia governors’ wickedness and insensitivity to the hazardous environmental conditions faced by the people who produce oil, claiming that all they received from them was empty promises and evil.
They applauded the completion of the Umuokomiri road, which had been unfinished for many years, as well as the governor Alex Otti administration and Joshua Onyeike, general manager of ASOPADEC, Abia State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission.
The locals of Umuokomiri recalled how local businesses shut down due to a shortage of access roads, adding that car owners were unable to visit their village.
“Before the State Government’s intervention through ASOPADEC, we had been in a terrible situation for a very long time and had been yearning for a way out.
“The road was flooded, desolate, and entirely abandoned; our folks would park their automobiles at the intersection and walk, perhaps over a kilometer, to get to their homes. However, today’s story is different.
“Everyone is pleasantly traveling along the path, and we are eternally grateful to God for providing us with Governor Otti. It was like a dream to us.
This is an answer to prayer for the Umuokomiri community, according to Chimeko Ezekiel. “The former era made false promises to us and were unresponsive to our plight, but our story has changed today and the impression we had about ASOPADEC has also changed for good,” she said.