Umuahia residents resort to trekking as Vice President’s visit shut down state

Umuahia residents had a tough time getting to their various destinations on Thursday, as the Vice President Prof Yemi Osinbajo came on an official state visit.

The residents woke up to meet with the challenges of movement imposed on them by the “authorities” from 6 am to 1.45 pm when the VP left the state.

Osinbajo was in the state to launch the Abia State Telehealth Initiative established by Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu.

People were forced to trek about 10 kilometers from Abia Tower, Nkwoegwu area, Isieke Ibeku (along Bende road), Ahiaeke (Ikot Ekpene road) and Isi Court (along Aba road) to Umuahia city centre as taxies and tricycle operators were forced out of business by blocking of all major entrances to the Umuahia city centre tower.

This is not the first time it is happening in the state anytime a federal politician or leader visits the state, even a minister, the state capital is locked down.

For a resident, “we were simply subjected to military parade hardship as we have to trek more than 10km to go to work and to our work places”.

According to a businessman who chose to speak on the condition of anonymity, “not only that our business shops were forced to close, especially along the major streets of the town, we were harassed for daring to open them”.

At Azikiwe road by Ojike Street, a middle-aged man wept profusely as the police blockade at the junction prevented him from going to the morgue to carry his father’s corpse for burial.

“Why? Oh! Why? The mortuary people are waiting for me and I cannot go. What type of state is this”, he complained to plain cloth security agents who did not even care to listen to him.

Near the Umuahia railway station, a 90-year old woman that was seriously sick, had to be carried by hand to the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia by her children when the police did not allow them to take their mother to the hospital, even as the police saw the worst condition of the woman.

The children were speechless and could not even talk to newsmen who besieged them.

It was not only that, close to the Umuahia North LGA headquarters, a young mother with a 6-months old child that was seriously sick was not allowed to take her child to the hospital she was going to in a tricycle.

Inspite of her pleadings, the “authorities” did not allow her, even as they saw the condition of the baby.

Abians therefore berated the idea of blocking the major roads in Aba and Umuahia under such occasions, counting their losses to be in millions of naira.

They urged the state government not to encourage the destruction by the police of the viable economic conditions the governor has instituted in the state.

According to them, a better mode of securing important personnel should be evolved and not to bestow hardship of the Abia business community because of a single personality.