By NewsCritic Reporters
The people of Ukwa land have been urged to for once reject at the forthcoming polls all the oppressive and reactionary forces that have connived to subject the area to its present sorry state.
This is just as they have been called upon to vote only those who will place the collective interests of Ukwa and its people above their personal gains.
Dr Tom Otuka, a prominent son of the oil-bearing community and a chieftain of the nascent political platform the Action Peoples Party, APP, made the appeal in an exclusive interview with NewsCritic online in Aba Wednesday.
He noted that over the years, the people of Ukwa land have found themselves romancing with abject poverty, unmitigated suffering, infrastructural deficit and exclusion from the scheme of things both in Abia state and in the country generally despite being one of the major cash cows of Nigeria due mainly to bad leadership selections.
According to the Consultant Gynaecologist turned political leader, the only semblance of developmental projects that could be seen in Ukwa land as of today, are the ones that were executed by the Sen Orji Uzor Kalu administration between 1999 and 2003.
Dr Otuka regretted that since the modest progress made by the Orji Kalu regime, subsequent regimes in Abia state have instead promoted serial marginalization of the people and complete denial of the basic amenities of life.
Dr Otuka therefore called on the people to massively cast their votes for the gubernatorial candidate of the APP, Chief Mascot Uzor Kalu, since according to him the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, led administrations in the state since after Senator Orji Kalu have failed the people.
“I am urging the good people of Ukwa land to vote massively for Mascot Kalu and other APP candidates at all levels. I strongly believe that Mascot will replicate the same developmental strides in Ukwa land like his elder sibling did between 1999 and 2003.
“The PDP has shown that it does not care for the people. The only things we have gained from the PDP since 2003 in Ukwa land are decayed infrastructures, abject poverty and criminal exclusion from the scheme of things in Abia state. In fact, the worst thing that has happened to the Ukwa land in the past 15-years is having the PDP at the helm of affairs in the Abia state.