Igbeaku Orji 
Hope that directors affected by the directive to retire after eight years in the Abia State civil service could be recalled has been dashed as Governor Alex Otti has ruled out the possibility of recalling them.
The affected Directors, who protested their sack following the reform in the State service, appealed to Governor Otti to review the rule arguing that some of them still had several years to go by the stipulated retirement age.
But the Governor in a media chat nailed the coffin insisting that the appeal would not change anything as their stepping aside had already brought elevation to some others.
“What the government did was to implement an existing rule. We did not do it to hurt anyone. If someone has served as a Director for eight years the rule says he/she should go.
“Some others have been elevated to replace them. So if we say, because they complain we rescind the order, then those who have risen to the new position would be removed and then they also would complain and we reverse, we will be like a yoyo.” He said the matter cannot be reversed.
The Governor explained that the infrastructure renewal would be sustained in the State especially in the two major towns of Aba and Umuahia, adding that an additional six roads would be commissioned in Aba next week.
According to Dr Otti, after the Ossah to Okpara Square road expansion, the contractor would take the expansion to the boundary with Imo State at Onuimo. The idea, he said, “is to give Umuahia the status of a State capital and not the glorified village it had been.”
He also disclosed that the government would mobilize resources and personnel to assist the people of Aro Ajatakiri, in Ikwuano Local Government Area, whose river and source of drinking water was recently contaminated by suspected industrial waste.
