PDP alleges Edo govt plan to sell Army barracks

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Edo State has raised alarm over what it described as the alleged plot by the state government to sell the Nigerian Army Barracks in Ikpoba Hill, Benin City, due to alleged lack of funds for capital development.

State Chairman of the party, Chief Dan Orbih, also described the approval of the 27.5 percent allowance for teachers and other actions of Governor Adams Oshiomhole as panic measures to deceive eligible voters in the state to cast their votes for All Progressives Congress, APC, in next month’s elections.

He said: “As I talk to you, the state government is planning to sell the land presently being occupied by the Nigerian Army barracks at Ikpoba Hill and all these are efforts by the state government to raise money at all costs to remain afloat and I want to assure Edo people that all that will be reverted through legal means as soon as the PDP government takes over power in 2016.

“When I criticized the state government for its inability to commence all the projects earmarked for execution as a result of lack of funds due to its insolvency, they came up the next day to say that the state was not broke and that I was lying, only to come up few weeks later to say the state was applying for World Bank loan for erosion project in the state.”

Orbih who spoke in Benin, while receiving a defector from the APC to PDP from Ovia South-West Local Government Area, Charles Amadasu, said: “We had earlier stopped them from selling Edo House in Lagos through court injunction and that case is still on and it will not be disposed off in the next three years and I can assure you with all confidence that Edo House will not be sold by the state government.”

But reacting to the alleged plan to sell the Army Barracks land at Ikpoba Hill by the state government, the state Publicity Secretary of APC, Godwin Erhahon, said: “First, I am not in a position to confirm that but if the government has any reason to put the land into proper use for the benefit of the people and decides to allocate it to individuals, what is the business of the PDP?”