A verbal war has ensued in the political camp of the Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, over the recent demotion of a headmistress to classroom teacher by the state government.

The headmistress of a primary school at Amaetiti Asaga Ohafia, in Ohafia Local Government Area, located in the Abia-North Senatorial District, Mrs. Maryellen Ezichi, was reportedly demoted to a classroom teacher for demanding the payment of the backlog of salary arrears owed teachers when the wife of the governor, Mrs. Nkechi Ikpeazu, visited the school to inaugurate the government’s free meal programme.

The first salvo was reportedly fired on Monday by Don Ubani, Gov. Ikpeazu’s kinsman from Abia-North and the Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Abia State, who accused the governor’s appointees from Abia-North of not doing enough to protect the governor and his wife in the “hostile” Abia-North.

He said, “No adviser worth his salt will advise or encourage the wife of his principal to stray into a domain, whose hatred and hostility against their principal, are not in any way hidden.”

But Ubani’s comment appeared to have infuriated the Deputy Speaker, Abia State House of Assembly, Cosmos Ndukwe, also a close political associate of Ikpeazu, who accused him of “unwittingly” declaring Abia-North an enemy’s territory of the governor.

Ndukwe, who hails from Abia-North, replied saying, “Don Ubani, arrogating to himself the monopoly of wisdom, has unwittingly declared Abia-North an enemy territory, so much that Governor Okezie Ikpeazu deserves hatred and hostility from the zone. As lost as I am in thought, I can say with utmost certainty that Don Ubani is perfecting the art of divisive and mindless geo-sectional politics which he has been orchestrating all the while for grossly selfish reasons.”

Efforts to get a comment from the Chief Press Secretary to Ikpeazu, Enyinnaya Appolos, on the development proved abortive as his phones were not reachable as of the time of filing this report.

Punchng