Chairman of Obanliku Local Government Area, Cross River State, Margaret Inde, has handed out one farming hoe, a cutlass and a tuber of yam each, to a select number of indigenes in the area, as empowerment items, during activities to mark the 30th anniversary of the creation of the LGA as well as celebration of the new yam festival.
In a speech at the occasion, Inde said, the “occasion provides me with a great platform to tell you how we have fared with the mandate you gave us but first, I want to remind us of the economic situation of local governments in the country with very little resources available to run a government closest to the people.” She went on to pay “tribute to our past leaders and founding fathers who in the last 30 years have made huge sacrifice.”
She however did not, in her 4,632 worded address, refer to this empowerment or advance reasons for giving out the austere items. Local sources reached maintained however that the distribution of the items” was even politicized as most beneficiaries are cronies of politicians. “It is pitiable that in 2021, a local council boss cannot think beyond giving a cutlass, hoe and a tuber of yam as empowerment to her people. It is even outrageous that able bodied persons actually queued and were photographed collecting these equally outrageous items”, Icha Paul, an Obanliku indigene told www.calitown.com, over the phone. Several persons on social media, where more pictures of the empowerment event were posted, have taken a swipe at this gesture. Inde, a religious minister, was unavailable for comments after a handful of calls to her number were unattended to.
God will punish this chairman for insulting her people and cross river state