- In a bid to counter the claims, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Kazie Uko, led journalists on a tour of both the old and new Government House facilities, showcasing the extent of vandalism in the former government premises
The Abia State government responded to a media report alleging Governor Alex Otti’s abandonment of a new Government House in Umuahia.
According to the government, they inherited a vandalized old Government House and an incomplete, unfurnished new Government House complex from the previous administration.
In a bid to counter the claims, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Kazie Uko, led journalists on a tour of both the old and new Government House facilities, showcasing the extent of vandalism in the former government premises.
The previous administration had utilized the old Government House and also operated from the immediate past governor’s country home before leaving office in May.
At what was designated as the Governor’s Office, the level of vandalization was so much that not even a single furniture was left, even as cable television dishes, decoders, televisions and wires were removed. The CPS said, “This is what we inherited.”
At the new Government House complex, a section of the peripheral wall has caved in, while inside apartments are yet to be completed as carpenter’s wastes and planks filled the rooms.
But for the left wing of the ground floor of the new Government House, which has three air-conditioner units and some furniture, the rest of the two-storey building are yet to be completed.
Uko lamented, “This is where Governor Alex Otti is expected to live. There was no handover, and our administration does not even know what is here, except that it is an uncompleted building. They called it New Government House, when it is supposed to be Governor’s Lodge.”