Ebonyi airport reduced to a ‘private jet garage’, Diaspora group raises alarm

Ebonyi indigenes in the diaspora have alleged that the State airport, under Governor Francis Nwifuru’s administration, has been reduced to a landing pad for chartered private jets at taxpayers’ expense, even as neighbouring states prepare to commence commercial and cargo flight operations before the end of the year.

The Association of Ebonyi Indigenes Socio-Cultural in the Diaspora AEISCID, in a statement signed by its President, Ambassador Paschal Oluchukwu, cited the airport’s underutilisation as one of the starkest indictments of a government it described as clueless and undeserving of a second term ahead of the 2027 governorship election.

“Ebonyi airport on the other hand is only useful for renting and landing of chartered private jets by the state government and at taxpayers’ expense,” the group said. 

It contrasted the facility’s sorry state with developments in Enugu and Abia States, where governors are preparing for commercial and cargo aircraft to begin operations from December this year, as recently disclosed by the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo.

The diaspora group was responding to a statement credited to the Ebonyi State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Oguzor Nwali, who had described it as “another mischievous youth gang of Anyi Chuks Campaign Council” and dismissed it as “an amateur gang-up” that “lacks clear-cut delineation of what it actually represents.”

The group described the Commissioner as a “distressed” politician but advised him to engage professional writers and editors to avoid further embarrassment, noting that “his last reply on Facebook actually had over 20 syntax, lexical and spelling errors.”

It also challenged the state government to produce a credible sector-by-sector performance scorecard, arguing that it had become evident that Governor Nwifuru had no completed projects to present to the Presidential Media Team that recently visited Ebonyi State on an assessment tour.

“From the Vanco flyover and tunnel that has since turned into a large swimming pool in this rainy season to the ICT University in Oferekpe Agbaja that has only partially completed staff quarters and then to the litany of uncompleted modern civil servants staff quarters and schools littered across the state, the story is the same — that Nwifuru, who now receives more allocations, has done absolutely nothing to justify the huge billions of money he gets from the centre,” the statement read.

The association also alleged that the governor and his appointees felt entitled to a second term without any record of achievement in their first, adding that the only visible sign of government activity in the state remained the ruling All Progressives Congress administration’s 4+4=8 signpost projects.

“Worse still, he and his large coterie of appointees feel greatly entitled to a second term in office without any records of achievements in the first. As a matter of fact and concern, APC’s 4+4=8 signpost projects have become the only visible sign that there’s a government in Ebonyi State,” the statement said.

The group accused the administration of being “lavish in wasting tax-payers funds” over three years of largely unchecked governance, alleging that it had “taken pride in sponsoring more weddings, burials and child dedication ceremonies for Nwifuru’s very extended family than focusing on rural or even urban development projects.”

“It suffices therefore that like Tinubu’s Emi lokan, Nwifuru feels his Izzi clan is so entitled to another term in office that he boldly threatened the opposition in a recent endorsement rally for Tinubu that he has all it takes to consume them,” the statement added.