One situation that bothered Gov Umahi prior to his ascension to power as the governor of Ebonyi State was the reference to Africa as a dark continent, thus he pledged to make Ebonyi State one spot that would not be part of the negative categorization, especially as his ascendency to office was viewed by many as the triumph of light over darkness.
In the absence of a single street light in the Abakaliki capital city in May 2015, the town was like a ghost town as it was in perpetual darkness with insecurity and the attendant lack of night life holding sway, to complete the picture of a drab and dreary environment.
To address the subsisting gloom, Engr Chief David Umahi, on assuming office created the Ministry of Power from the defunct Ministry of Public Utilities, with the mandate to provide street lights across the State as a measure to wrench the State from the cloak of darkness that was covering it.
The Ministry immediately swung into work to illuminate the capital city with street lights to guarantee the security of the inhabitants, encourage night business and enhance the social status of the Capital city through the purchase and installation of transformers and generators that power them. To this has been added solar street lights.
Today, they exist a magically enchanting incandescence about the once sleepy Ebonyi State, as lights have been energized in almost all the streets and public properties in the State capital and all the local government headquarters and towns.
As motorists cruise through the well paved streets, they are treated to the full luminescence of the street lights, a situation that makes both motorists and pedestrians to confess that electricity is indeed the beauty of a city, little wonder that God made light to precede all other creations in the cosmic order.
Ebonyians and visitors to the State have continued to laud and applaud the light up Ebonyi project as businesses that close on the onset of darkness now stays late into the night because of enhanced security as hoodlums who would have wanted to exploit darkness for their nefarious activities have been checkmated by the street lights, with that also is the return of night life.
Indeed, Ebonyi State today can no longer be referred to as one of the dark spots in Africa. This is another promise made and kept by the Umahi administration.
