Some days back, I received an email forwarded to me by a friend. Titled, “AS TYRANNY TAKES OFF IN IMO STATE”, the mail highlighted the state of evil that is evolving in Imo State since Ikedi Ohakim decided to run a huge scam complex in the name of governance in Imo State. Before this and at the wake of the ill-advised closure of the Imo State University, someone, ostensibly a student I don’t know forwarded a text message to my phone to the effect that the arbitrary closure of Imo State University, which is running into several months now, shows that Imo is really in the hands of the gods. How prophetic that sounded as Imo citizens warm up to the emerging scenario of a state that is undergoing the bitterest experience in the hands of a rapist who treats and manages the state treasury as if it belongs to Ikedi Ohakim, Achike Udenwa, Maurice Iwu and no one else.
In the forwarded mail, which was meant for circulation in the media, the writer, highlighted what he saw as the dawn of naked tyranny in Imo State, with the hounding of dissent voices and opinions that are not recruited to the huge propaganda complex in Owerri presently. He captured the experience of one Maximus Uba, a critic of Ohakim’s government who was allegedly arrested and detained by the state police command for questioning the rationale of the obviously stupid and unrealistic budget of over N130 billion Ohakim proposed and got approved for 2009 fiscal year. He went further to state that several individuals have been marked for elimination by the Ohakim regime and with what I observe going on in Imo State at present, this is not a hoax. The other day, I heard Ohakim has approved the demolition of Optimum Hotel, just besides the Assumpta Cathedral Owerri owned by the former speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly, one Kelechi Nwagwu who recently dismissed Ohakim for what he really is, a big scammer that is taking Imo State to the cleaners under dubious guises. The dressing down came at the wake of the quarrel between Ohakim and his godfather and former governor, Achike Udenwa who is now Yar’Adua’s Minster of Industries and Commerce for which Ohakim reportedly hurried off to Abuja to beg Udenwa who, with the discredited chairman of INEC, Maurice Iwu, stole Ohakim in as governor in April 2007.
In the mail, written by one Ikenna Samuelson Iwuoha, most of the sordid happenings Ohakim has been perpetrating in the Owerri government house were highlighted and these included the intimidation of contrary voices to the revelry in Owerri, the uncensored looting of the Imo treasury under very phony and fake programmes and the collaboration of both the hen-pecked Imo House of Assembly (Imo house of parody) and the state police command in this rape of the state treasury. Any one who has been observing the unfolding scenario in Imo State since April 2007 cannot but agree totally with Samuelson on these and various other unstated issues..
The fact is that Ohakim, still overwhelmed by the magic that brought him to the Owerri Government house, is having an extended party. When he came newly, there were several allegations making the rounds that he was a practicing 419er before he came to his unexpected lift. This was confirmed when he made the notorious 419er, Dominic Egbukwu, alias Damaco of the Otokoto fame, the head of his scam project, Clean and Green. Tremendous public protest and outcry was to force him to replace him with one William Amadi. The project has excelled in voracious propaganda and inhuman demolition of people’s sources of living while Ohakim and his fawners hold an unending party in the name of governance.
Three days ago, angry students of the Imo State University, who have been rusticated for several months as Ohakim furthers his dirty tricks on the school stormed the government in their thousands denouncing the evil regime in Imo State and calling for the immediate opening of the state. They defied the barricade mounted by Ohakim’s allied forces, which has become a sad feature of the Imo government since April 2007 to scale the barricade gates and were only dispersed through live bullets fired by Ohakim’s overzealous security forces.
Today, Ohakim carried a minor reshuffle in his cabinet. When people expected he would free himself from the dire clutches of Udenwa and Maurice Iwu, he rather deepened it through his so-called cabinet reshuffle, which trails Yar’Adua’s own reshuffle in confusion and tardiness. He had sold out the news that he was to dissolve his cabinet and this remained in the news for weeks before he summoned the courage to that. First, he announced a cabinet sack and quickly reversed himself by freeing out just five commissioners and few special assistants. He then brought in Amanze Obi, the chairman of The Sun editorial board, who landed a juicy contract with the INEC leadership for his paper immediately after the record-breaking fraud that attended the April 2007 elections. He had been in the dirty but dead-on-arrival project to launder the horrible image of Iwu and his INEC since after that scam and in furtherance of the priceless debt he owed Iwu for rigging him in as Imo governor in April 2007, Ohakim made his man-Friday his Commissioner for Information. He eased out the amiable and lovable Steve Osuji, his Chief Press Secretary, who never appealed to Ohakim because he was not thug and in his place, he recruited Bright Nwelue, a practicing sycophant who ran Udenwa’s failed propaganda machine as his chief press secretary.
To demonstrate that he is hardly his own man, he fortified his cabinet with the men that ran the failed Udenwa government and those forced on him by Iwu whose brother holds the position of Secretary to the State Government and his daughter, Special Adviser in a move aimed to sharing the booties of the state between the troika of Ohakim, whose only brother presides as his chief of staff, Udenwa whose men hold all the juicy appointments in Ohakim’s cabinet and Iwu who wrote the fictitious result that brought Ohakim to power. The resources of the state go in this same troikal arrangement and this has ensured that while Ohakim runs a big propaganda complex, Imo State remains the least state among the 36 states of Nigeria that is recording any meaningful progress apart from the noisome and empty chorus of ‘clean and green’. Imo is a state where one cannot point to any meaningful project going on or completed. The few roads Ohakim has done are some village roads in his Anara, Mbano axis that have no known economic value but suits his parochial interests, just like the man in whose image he is mimicking, Achike Udenwa. Like in the eight years of Udenwa, Owerri Zone has been bardly treated as demonstrated in the protest from the zonal leaders after Ohakim presented his phantom budget to the state assembly and no viable project was located in the nine local councils that make up Owerri zone. Mbaise where his tea-serving deputy comes from remains perhaps the worst hit in Ohakim’s governance of Imo State.
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Ohakim has reduced governance in Imo State to one big sycophantic industry where singing his praises has become one rewarding venture. Loyalty and allegiance is determined by how well you chorus the ‘ochinanwata’ sing-song, which thrills the governor and his vanity to no ends. It is laughable that Ohakim should revel in such queer appellation at over 50 years when Obama is ruling America at 46! Promotion and gratifications are awarded based on how one licks the feet of Ohakim than on how grounded one is on the job. In this, it is understandable who Ohakim desperately furnishes the wheels of his propaganda industry managed by Pini Jason, who used to write a fiery column in the Vanguard but who today, worships no god except Ohakim. to him lies the credit for the many syndicated articles appearing in various names in many Nigerian newspapers singing the praises of Ohakim.
Ohakim is so obsessed with vanity and pettiness that he spends most of his time, quarrelling with those that criticize his many evil ways. None of his public speeches is complete unless he has thrown one jibe or the other at his envisaged opponents. He spends the rest in self-praise to the hand-clapping and hooting of his political appointees, saying how he had even made Imo State a wonderland of the twentieth century and how he had delivered unknown democracy dividends to Imo State. A terribly contrasting split personality, he would prescribe the stoning of corrupt public officials to draw public applause but would in two days time, be the first governor to speak against the removal of immunity clause because he knows he is a goner with the removal of that obnoxious clause. He eats and lives flattery and jesting to high heavens and would fancy himself a special creation made for Imo State.
As captured in the article by Nwoha, the looting binge in Imo State under Ohakim is public knowledge and all over Imo State, the regret is how the state ended in the clutches of a mere scammer. The looting spree is why Ohakim has not executed any of the several projects he flippantly promises to draw instant raucous applause from his hired fawners at every event. Some of these unfulfilled projects include
* The Nnanna Ukegbu Boulevard to link the Owerri and Port Harcourt airports. He had launched into another phantom road project to link Ngor Okpala and Oguta and I bet you it will end the way the Nnanna Ukegbu Road ended..
* The hundreds of rural roads he promised to execute in his first year in power.
* The league of foreign investors he promised to draw to the state.
* The end to the petroleum racketeering in Imo State. Fuel stations in Imo State sell fuel as much as N100 per liter
* The Quangdong Chinese project he said he had brought to Imo State.
* The 21st Century Health Emergency Unit in the rural areas.
* The dualisation of the Owerri-Umuahia, Owerri-Orlu, Owerri-Okigwe Roads which have ended up as the dividing the existing Owerri-Egbu, Owerri-Amakohia and Owerri-Orji township roads, and each of these does not measure up to a kilometer
* The Imo Wonder Lake, for which I understand no soil, has been moved and for which he is now intent on raising a N40billion bond to finance.
* The new government house, which President Yar Adua laid the foundation with so much fun fair last year.
* The Owerri Inner Ring Roads. Etc.
Because he is running a scam, these projects will remain to offer instant applause to Ohakim and will never be executed even if Ohakim spends twelve years in power. Ss one local columnist said in a local paper recently, the Ohakim government is pregnant and soon and very soon, the fraud will boil over and Imo will be the better for this impending scenario.
Stephen Nwahiri
Mushin Lagos.
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