The Managing Director of Anambra Signage and Advising Agency, Jude Emecheta, on Wednesday, said the state governor, Willie Obiano, did not order the destruction of Senator Ifeanyi Ubah’s billboards in the state.
Emecheta stated this while reacting to Ubah’s accusation that the state governor instructed thugs to destroy his billboards.
He alleged that Ubah still owed the state over N40m on billboards advertisement for his 2019 senatorial campaigns.
While denying that the governor mobilised thugs to destroy Ubah’s billboards, Emecheta said the senator did not pay N10m to the agency as claimed.
He said, “Ubah lied by saying he paid N10m to us. He can’t pay N10m to us and accept a receipt of N7.5m as he is circulating on social media.
“Secondly, the governor did not ask anybody to destroy Ubah’s billboards. My governor doesn’t reason that way.
“In some states, the governor gave a standing other that the opposition should not be allowed to mount any billboards in the state. But here, the governor does not care about such things.
“The issue is that Ubah lied to outdoor billboards advertisers that he would be mounting product adverts but will end up mounting political billboards which are costlier. Angered by such half-disclosure, the owners of the billboards will go and dismantle them. We don’t own billboards, we only regulate.
“Again, Ubah paid about N7.5m to us to mount 10 billboards but he ended up mounting over 19 billboards. We can’t allow that. About 28 governorship aspirants are contesting for space about placement of billboards, one man can’t flood the state with billboards, even without paying.”
Ubah had claimed that his billboards were destroyed because of his decision to contest the governorship of the state on the platform of the Young Progressives Party.
He accused agents of the state government of allegedly acting on the instructions of the state governor to carry out the destruction.
