The Abia State governorship candidate of the Action Democratic Party (ADP) for the 2019 general elections, Pastor Okey Udo, has commiserated with people of the state over the petroleum pipeline explosion which NEMA confirmed to have killed 62 people in Umu Nwankwo, Umuimo Njiko Umunna and Umuaduru communities in Osisioma LGA of the state on Saturday.
The explosion, it was gathered, was from an old NNPC pipeline which supplied PMS from Osisioma depot to Enugu and Kaduna through Umuimo and Umuaduru.
Udo, who spoke with our reporter in Abuja , asked those who have lost loved ones in the tragedy to take solace in the fact that life was transient and that it was God who gives life and only Him could take it.
He urged the state and the federal government to, as a matter of urgency, provide relief to those who survived the incident while they put measures in place to forestall future occurrence of disasters of such magnitude in the state.
The clergyman lamented that Abia was among the oil producing states but there was nothing to show for all the money it had benefited from oil.
“This tragic incident is a sad reminder that we are an oil producing state that has not benefitted from the oil money. We lack infrastructure in every sector, transport, economic, education, health and you name it,” he said.
He assured that he would development the agricultural sector so as to create jobs and also develop infrastructure which would turn around the economic fortunes of the state, thereby improving the welfare of the citizens of the state, if elected governor come 2019.
