Communal war: Umahi to inject N100 million in rebuilding market

Ebonyi State Governor, Engr. David Umahi, on Friday said he has earmarked the sum of N100 million to rebuild Effium market that was destroyed during a recent communal clash.

He said the rebuilding of the market must be done before he bows out of office in 2023.

Umahi made this known while addressing stakeholders of the state and members of his executives council while receiving a report from a committee he set up to investigate the remote causes of Effium war which had led to the wanton destruction of properties and massacre of hundreds of innocent farmers.

The governor received the report at the EXCO Chambers, Old Government House, Abakaliki, during which occasion he equally swore-in some commissioners.

He said at the event: “I want to thank the Effium city crisis committee for doing a good job. It’s not easy. It has been very difficult even with the token of the N100 million that we want to use in building houses for indigent widows who were rendered homeless in Effium, and it is very unfortunate.

“It has been very difficult and all over the country the problem we have is our leaders. And we are leaders and we do not think deeply about God that brings us to lead the people and know the crisis of this nature is the less privileged and the old and the widows are being killed.

“We will do something about the Effium market; I won’t be a happy man to bow out without modernising Effium market. It is better to modernize Effium market and make it beautiful. If they want to destroy it, let them do it, but that was part of our campaign promises,” the governor said.