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Group demands Gov. Umahi’s clarification over alleged ownership of N40bn P/ Harcourt hotel

Ebonyi-DailyTimes

Tunde Opalana, Abuja

The Ebonyi State governor, David Umahi has been asked to react to the allegation that he owns a hotel, located in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, which is estimated to worth N40 billion

A group of Ebonyi indigenes under the aegis of the Association of Ebonyi State Indigenes in Diaspora (AESID) said it is imperative for the governor to clear his name of linkage with the hotel allegedly named after Osborn Umahi.

The association expressed concern that the governor had maintained sealed lips since the images of the said Port-Harcourt Osborn La Palm Hotel, though under construction, went viral on the social media.

President of AESID, Amb Pascal Oluchukwu, in a statement released to newsmen Sunday in Abuja, called on anti-graft agencies to begin to investigate the actual ownership of the hotel to avoid any complicity .

READ ALSO: Ebonyi group tackles Umahi over viral rice video

The multi – billion naira hotel located in the heart of the oil-rich city of Port-Harcourt, according to AESID, is said to have a roof-top swimming pool and a Presidential penthouse as one of its many peculiarities.

The statement said: “The fact that the said hotel project started just in 2016 is even more worrisome for the indigenes of a state like Ebonyi where endemic and anthropogenic poverty is the order of the day, having been accurately ranked the poorest state in the entire Southern Nigeria and the 3rd poorest among the 36 states of the Nigerian federation.

“Our position on this revelation is that Governor Umahi must speak up on this monumental allegations within at least 24 hours and the anti-graft agencies should begin to gather their facts and evidences aright and await the days of reckoning, knowing that immunity protects him from being prosecuted by the Nigerian government even at this point.”

The association went further to charge the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike to be on the side of accountability by “revoking the land where the said hotel is situated especially if Umahi fails to open-up on these weighty allegations against his person.”

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