By Princely Onyenwe,Imo
Senator Rochas Okorocha is a serving senator of the Federal Republic of NIGERIA after serving Imo state as the governor in two tenures. He however contested for the position of Presidency twice and presently casting his net of the 2023 Presidential position.
There is no doubt while Okorocha was a serving governor he did his best to open new vistas of development in Imo state but regrettably majority of such developmental milestones could not last after him.
9News Nigeria can authoritatively reveal that 70% of such projects scattered all over the state have turned to a state of decay and a laughing matter to his great vision for the state and possibly may hinder his wife ambition for a higher contest.
It is not that Senator Okorocha did not work while he was a governor but his second tenure was said to have destroyed all his wonderful works done to the state and the people are not happy while counting on all the loses such wild projects have caused the state.
Time may not permit to enumerate the projects here but one taking a tour round Imo state will confirm the actual position of this report. The worst is the International Conference center at the center of the state capital which has collapsed so supprisingly including the roads that could not last before his tenure ended.
It is a good prayer of the people to have Okorocha as the next NIGERIAN PRESIDENT at least from the IGBO extraction but one will begin to imagine how best NIGERIA can be with such standard of work exhibited in Imo state. In education and care given, Okorocha’s administration is better in comparison to other Imo governors by 9News Nigeria assessment.
However, at the declaration of his presidential bid today dated 31-01-2022, a socio-political and accountability group under the shoes of Global Association of Concerned Imo Youths (GACIY) led by Collins Ughalaa KSC, Convener writes as thus:
OPEN LETTER TO IGP ALKALI BABA OVER PLANNED OBSCENE PRESS CONFERENCE BY SENATOR ETHELBERT OKOROCHA
Mr. IGP,
We write on behalf of 10year old Somtochukwu Ibeanusi, Laz Anyanwu, Ugonna Ozurigbo, Emeka Ihekwoaba and all others marthyred during the Ethelbert Okorocha regime to ask you to stop an obscenity scheduled to hold this morning at the International Conference Centre, Abuja at least for the sake of public decency if nothing else.
Mr. Okorocha is billled to address a World Press Conference by 10 o’clock today. As usual, Sir, he will put on a show. He will talk big, he will pretend to be pious, to be burderned by the state of the land. He will repeat all manner of platitudes and even invoke a new catchphrase, buzzword or mantra. But he is fake.
Asides being a fake man, he has weighty allegations on his neck that he has failed to discharge. As we write, his ill-acquired estates in Imo, having been so identified by a competent judicial panel of enquiry, are being seized one by one and restituted to their rightful owners. These ill-acquired estates include contiguous hectares of real estate in choice locations, universities, communual ancestral lands, public facilities, markets, luxury apartments, machinery, factory equipment and others too numerous to state here.
Sir, is it not a brutal irony that while Mr Okorocha has imported cronies to the ICC Abuja to cheer him on, a similar ‘Imo International Conference Centre, IICC’ which he built under his watch as governor collapsed into itself right before his very eyes? Most wretchedly, this is the state of nearly all public infrastructure built under the Okorocha regime. This is criminal breach of trust of the worst kind, Sir. Having run Imo ragged, he wants to do same to Nigeria? That’s impossible.
Sir, it deserves repeating that Mr. Okorocha is a fake man. He knows full well that pigs will fly before he will ever become president of Nigeria. His real intention therefore is to join the presidential and negotiate his way out of prosecution. If this happens, posterity will never forgive us. The blood of all those martyred by his acts and ommissions will haunt us.
This is why we humbly request, dear IGP, that you disperse this provocative gathering as allowing it will mean that you have endorsed the most menacing affront on the sensibilities of Imo people, and Nigerians in general.
The only press conference Okorocha qualifies to give is one in which he is on his knees offering atonement for his innumerable iniquities against Ndi Imo.
In a related Development, a group known as New Nigeria Movement has reacted through Micheal Anyanwu to approve Rochas Okorocha’s expression of interest to go ahead with the presidential ambition. The original copy states:
RE: ROCHAS OKOROCHA: A POLITICAL ERROR NIGERIA SHOULD NEVER EXPERIENCE
A CHEAP BLACKMAIL FROM ENEMIES OF NDIGBO
SENATOR OKOROCHA DELIVERED DIVIDENDS OF DEMOCRACY AND GOOD GOVERNANCE IN IMO STATE
HE WILL PERFORM BETTER WHEN HE BECOMES PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA
It is true that propaganda is a political tool employed and distributed by especially political adversaries in order to misinform, cause harm and advance their political cause, but after reading a poorly-scripted, calumnious, mendacious and nauseating piece in which one notorious imposter, Cajetan Duke, from Imo state, posited that “Rochas Okorocha is a political error Nigeria should never experience”, it got me really worried that with all the protracted years of marginalisation and injustice against ndigbo and 2023 availing itself as the best time for ndigbo to produce the next President of Nigeria, some Igbo people, up till now, still harbor this attitude of fighting hard to pull down their own in every electioneering year.
It is understandable that since His Excellency Distinguished Senator Rochas Okorocha made open his intention to run for President of the Federal Republic next year, some co-aspirants to the same office are really threatened by his ambition and have continued to lose sleep because they known him too well to be eminently qualified than themselves, but what remains mind-boggling and puzzling is how some people from Imo state had sold themselves so cheaply to those opposed to Nigeria President of Igbo extraction in order to help them propagate campaign of calumny against their former governor whom they know is the strongest and most qualified presidential aspirant from the Southeast.
If the report that Chief Hope Uzodimma emerged Tinubu’s zonal campaign coordinator is anything to go by, it means, therefore, that the former Senator whose emergence as Imo governor still remains controversial, is all out to truncate history in the making and scuttle the chance of ndigbo producing the next President of Nigeria. This could explain the reason one of his hallelujah boys and boot-lickers, Cajetan Duke, would have been instructed to unleash the affront, blackmail and misinform the unsuspecting public about Senator Okorocha as a guaranteed ticket for his next meal.
With these developments, it is now getting clearer, and of course, so heartbreaking, to realize that the pursuit to sell this kind of cheap blackmail against Senator Okorocha, and ndigbo by extension, stems from the fact that he is perceived as a major threat to their Jagaban-patron who is aspiring for the same office, and the situation could be responsible for the cardinal policy of Chief Uzodimma’s administration which is obviously hinged on witch-hunt and voracious destruction of all Senator Okorocha’s monumental legacies in Imo state which some believe to be a manifestation of Tinubu’s script.
To set the records straight and contrary to the falsehood being peddled, Senator Okorocha’s outstanding leadership qualities are reflective of the standards he has set for himself and the tremendous impactful accomplishments recorded in key leadership positions he has so far occupied. Besides Sam Mbakwe who governed the old Imo state, Senator Okorocha remains the best governor the modern Imo had ever had with proven records to show for it.
In his approach to government during his glorious reign as the then governor of Imo, apart from restoring peace and confidence in the entire Imo people to the nation’s democratic process, it is on verifiable record that Senator Okorocha’s commitment to good governance made him create a system founded in justice and peace that protected individual’s human rights, civil liberties and enhanced security of lives and property in the state. The “my people, my people” mantric artificer who has continued to prove in words and actions to be a man of the people, ensured that all interest groups, particularly women, youths and the most vulnerable, had direct or representative access to his administraion, and that, as a matter of fact, encouraged a strong civil society and enhanced citizen’s freedom of association and expression. More women, youths and physically-challenged, in record time, were appointed into prominent offices without having to lobby for it or passing through godfathers.
As governor, one other commendable aspect of his administration was his commitment to equity and inclusiveness. For instance, he did not only ensure that all the 27 Local Government areas, 305 electoral wards and 645 autonomous communities had that sense of belonging in the areas of capital projects, amenities and appointments, but also empowered and improved the well-being of the people, especially those individuals and groups that are the most vulnerable. The interest of people from other ethnic nationalities living or doing businesses in the state were also protected by his administration.
No sincere person would speak about Senator Okorocha’s 8-year tenure as governor without mentioning how his administration was consensus-oriented, in that, decisions were taken or made in a manner that involved the nondiscriminatory participation of critical stakeholders as well as the consideration and accommodation of many different needs, perspectives, and demands of people of the state.
In the area of capital projects, Senator Okorocha built, improved, maintained and developed countless number of capital assets or infrastructure for the common good of Imo people and the wellbeing of the state. Some of the achievements of Senator Okorocha in this regards include: building of 305 model primary schools, 27 ICT centres spread across the 27 LGAs of the state, first to fifth inland roads, Akachi Road, several link and rural roads, Heroes Square, Freedom Square, Imo International Conference Centre, Trade and Investment Centre, Ikemba Ojukwu Convention Center, Imo International cargo airport, Government House Chapel, Multi-purpose Hall at Oguta Motel, the Oputa High Court, modern Nigeria Correctional facility, new state-of-the-art Police headquarters, 30 hospitals, etc. just to mention a few. Some of the hospitals, however, are completed, while others are not, but already have all the roofs, tiled, except equipping. Unfortunately, many of these resourceful infrastructure are left to either dilapidate or consciously demolished by the incumbent administration in the state.
Another important area Senator Okorocha distinguished himself as governor and displayed leadership capacity and commitment to the development of the state was embarking on Human Capital Projects. In his effort to accelerate more and better investments in people for greater equity and economic growth, and to make education accessible to all irrespective of social status, he made education in the state absolutely free from primary to tertiary levels. He increased subvention to the Imo State University from 57.56million naira to 100million naira monthly, and instead of implementing the 150,000 naira school fees for IMSU students as proposed by his predecessor, he scrapped off the entire school fees and made education free.
The provision of free and compulsory education remains one of Senator Okorocha’s landmark achievements in his eight years administration in the state. He also built six more universities, four polytechnics, two colleges of education, the Imo College of Advanced Professional Studies, the Young Scientists’ College, Owerri, among several others.
These are some of the achievements the amateur and quack writer, Cajetan Duke, intentionally avoided to mention simply because his pay master, in his animosity and desperation to erase Senator Okorocha’s promotive groundbreaking achievements, is busy viciously demolishing alot of the signature projects in Imo state in a bid to give their Jagaban-patron an edge in the presidential contest.
I do not want to meddle into the frivolity he tagged the historical excursion into the background of Okorocha which obviously was done with mallicious intent. However, it pertinent to educate Duke that the former
Imo State Governor joined the merger which produced the All Progressives Congress APC, because he saw it as a potent step he could take then to assist ndigbo regain their rightful place in the nation’s political equation as well as to salvage and secure their political future.
In becoming a principal founder of APC, Senator Okorocha made that ultimate patriotic sacrifice at the risk of his second term in office as governor of the state, and that sacrifice is the reason ndigbo now see themselves as critical stakeholders in the party and can today boldly demand for the party’s presidential ticket to be zoned to the Southeast.
If Senator Okorocha had not taken the risk of joining the APC, a political party he proposed its name that was treated with so much disdain before it became the ruling party, Governor Hope Uzodimma who was rendered stranded in PDP and now enjoying what Senator Okorocha laboured for, would not have had a platform that would have made him governor, even though he had openly confessed that his emergence happened in a “Ben Johnson” way.
What is instructive is that, apart from being a dedicated party man who has a brawny grassroot support-base across Nigeria and has contributed immensely in strengthening our country’s democracy, Senator Okorocha, in his conducts and associations, represents true nationalism and lives above regional or sectional political bigotry. This is a credential many of his contemporaries do not have and one of the reasons his Presidential ambition has posed a serious nightmare to some of the people jostling for that same office with him.
Besides, Senator Okorocha has proven his unwavering commitment to selfless service to humanity long before he joined politics. He established the Rochas Foundation, through which he has made education accessible to many poor children from across Nigeria and other African countries.
For such a leader who understands the language and behavior of every ethnic nationality in Nigeria and enjoys a longlasting cordial relationship with them, sited educational facilities in all the regions of the country and whose vested interest is to see the poorest of the poor and most vulnerable across all regions afford quality education for free, he is a great national asset that any forward-thinking country would want as their President.
With such a visionary and experienced leader who delivered dividends of democracy and good governance in Imo state and has so far dedicated a better part of his life staying committed to the development, unity, peace and progress of Nigeria, there is no doubt that he will do better when given the opportunity to be the President of Nigeria.
Our duty as the fourth estate of the realm is to inform the public of the latest happenings across the globe while the NIGERIAN 2023 election last. We promise to keep our readers posted.
9News Nigeria (Owerri) For inquiries on this news contact 9News Nigeria Imo State @08036856526
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