Abia government, however, said it took major steps to stop kidnappings and other criminal activities in the state
By Kehinde Okeowo
Abia State Government has refuted claims that it ordered Northerners residing and conducting their businesses at the Lokpanta Cattle Market, in the state to leave.
This was made known in a statement made available by the Special Adviser to the Governor Alex Otti on Security, Navy Commander Macdonald Ubah (rtd). while briefing journalists at the government house in Umuahia on Monday.
According to him. the rumours making the round that government issued quit notices to Northerners in the market located around Enugu-Umuahia-Aba-Port Harcourt Expressway by Umunneochi, is fake news.
He noted that most of the cattle dealers in the market are second and third generations of Igbos, and therefore the Governor Otti-led government could not have given such a directive.
“Those Northerners are the second and third generations of Igbos” living in Lokpanta,” Ubah said.
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He, however, clarified that the Abia government noticed that the Lokpanta-Uturu axis of the State had been under siege by criminal elements in the last couple of years, adding that this prompted the major steps recently taken by the State government to eliminate the spate of kidnappings and other criminal activities in the area.
He went on to say preliminary investigation pointed to the Lokpanta Cattle market as a major hideout for all kinds of individuals involved in different criminal activities, including kidnappings, organ harvesting, armed robbery and other violent crimes.
The retired Naval Commander further stated that ransoms for kidnap victims around the Uturu-Umunneochi axis are allegedly paid in the market, a situation which according to him, prompted the State government to, among other measures, carry out deliberate actions including demolition of brothels and shanties in the market.
Ubah also described Governor Otti as a detribalised Nigerian, having appointed non-Abians into his cabinet.
The Special Adviser on security to the Abia governor added that the stand of the government is that the market would no longer be residential, but a daily market, insisting that the decision is in the interest of the citizens and the cattle dea.s.