End Avoidable Deaths In Our State, Ikechi Emenike Charges Abia Govt

The 2023 Abia State Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, High Chief Ikechi Emenike, has urged conscious efforts to ensure that lives are not wasted due to avoidable deaths in the state.

Reacting to the fatal accident at the Ogbor Hill area of Aba on Tuesday, which led to the loss of four lives and 11 people surviving with varying degrees of injuries, Emenike expressed anguish at the abrupt end of the victims.

He advised the Abia State Government to do the needful and ensure that the lives of Abians were no longer jeopardised by careless drivers.

The Development Economist noted that even though nobody has the power to determine when and how death would come, “we must do our best as government and as citizens to avoid avoidable deaths.”

Lamenting that the Ogbor Hill Waterside area had been recording fatal accidents over the years, he noted that the latest fatalities could have been averted if a lasting solution had been put in place.

“It is all the more regrettable and disheartening to learn that this fatal accident could have been avoided given an extant regulation prohibiting heavy-duty and articulated vehicles from entering Abia cities during the day.

“Unfortunately, and perhaps for political reasons, it appeared there was a break in the enforcement of the ban on movement of heavy-duty vehicles following the change of government,” Emenike stated.

He warned against playing politics with the lives of Abians, stressing that politics should have no place in matters of safeguarding the lives and properties of people.

He maintained that a knee-jerk response would never bring a lasting solution to a nagging problem, adding that he was particularly pained by the heart-rending pictures that emanated from the scene of the accident.

“Such scenarios are products of actions, inactions or outright negligence,” he said.

Emenike commiserated with families who lost their loved ones in the accident, prayed for the peaceful repose of the departed souls, and wished the injured victims a quick recovery.