Ben Ezechime, Enugu
In the last days of Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s eight years tenure, residents of Enugu State have expressed mixed reactions over his performance as governor.
While some scored the outgoing governor relatively average, many others say the governor was the worst performing governor since the inception of the present Democratic experiment in 1999.
A cross section of the residents barred their minds in separate interviews with Ikengaonline.
Engr Francis Ede, a resident said the governor did not leave up to expectation in the area of infrastructural development.
“He did not perform up to my expectation because he came under a popular vote.
“People expected him to follow the footsteps of his predecessor by uplifting critical infrastructure in the state. He failed in this aspect,” Ede said.
He cited the perennial problem of water in Enugu as a case in point, saying that the former governor tried to make water available but it was late in his regime.
“Therefore, I had expected Ugwuanyi’s administration to continue along that line but he utterly failed and the age-long problem of water in Enugu has continued,” he said.
Also speaking, Barrister Olu Omotayo, said that the outgoing administration had many probing questions to answer, especially in the area of accountability.
“There are some transactions that the administration needs to answer, especially on the recent handover of former oxygen center built by the state government to the Federal Government, thereby denying citizens of the state employment opportunity.”
Mr Uloma Ayozie, a resident and a victim of the demolished building materials market, at Kenyatta Uwani Enugu sometime last August, said Ugwuanyi remains his worst enemy.
“It’s true that he built alternative shops at Ugwuaji but his boys bought the shops to resell to us at higher prices.
“We complained but his agents went ahead to demolish our shops, up till now nothing is happening in that land while some of us have turned to Keke (Tricycle) riders all of a sudden,” he said.
But for Mrs Agnes Ozioko, a civil servant, she was full of praises for Ugwuanyi for changing the lives of civil servants in the state.
“Ugwuanyi is the best for me since 1999. Under the previous administrations salary payment used to be a problem.
“In fact sometimes we received salary two to three months in areas.
“But since this man assumed office our salary has been prompt, sometimes with 13th month,” she said.
