In the last seven months, public servants in Imo State have not earned their salaries.
Imo State University was closed down as a result of protracted
strike, until some weeks ago when JAMB indicated that no fresh students
will be admitted to the institution since the school cannot have two
sets of first-year students at the same time.
This development, coupled with the fact that the final year law
students cannot go to law school without completing their studies,
forced the authorities of Imo State University (IMSU) to resume classes
in the interest of the students and their parents.
What is going on in the school now is a crash program. The health
institutions in the state have been ‘concessioned’ to friends and
cronies of the Imo State Governor who operate same and make returns to
him.
The Imo Transport Company Limited, Ada palm Nigeria Limited and Imo
Concord Hotels which used to be the major revenue earners to the State,
have all been ‘concessioned’ to friends and cronies of the Governor who
are now running same and making returns to His Excellency.
Because the workers at Imo State Board of Internal Revenues disclosed
to their Union the volume of enhanced Internally Generated Revenue
being earned by the State outside the monthly statutory allocation from
FAC, the Board of Internal revenue was disbanded with all the workers
sent away unceremoniously and without pay for several months now.
In their place, the Governor brought in his proxies who parade
themselves as consultants who now collect and assess revenue for the
Governor and not the Government on conditions best known to the Governor
alone.
For more than six months, the directors heading the eight (8)
Departments or Divisions of Imo State Ministry of Justice were sent home
in writing for alleged incompetence. When the new Commissioner for
Justice M. O. Nlemedim Esq. was sworn in, only the permanent secretary
Mrs. Alma Eluwa was in the Ministry to receive him.
After a passionate plea by the New Commissioner for Justice, the
Directors were recalled by telephone calls to resume duty and till date
no letter recalling them to duty had been given to them neither had they
been paid.
In the last seven months, the Imo State branch of Judiciary Staff
Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) had been on indefinite strike over nonpayment
of their salaries since January 2016.
A bid by the national body to settle the differences in June hit the
rocks because His Excellency refused to endorse the term of settlement
formulated by his Attorney General to wit: that the workers should be
paid their three (3) month’s salary to enable them resume work while the
outstanding shall be paid subsequently.
The Governor insists that he will not pay any public servant more
than seventy percent (70%) of his salary, not withstanding that the
terms of contract of employment between the government and those staff
including their salary data were stipulated in writing by their various
letters of employment and promotion.
As a result of this, the judiciary being an arm of government had
been closed down by the Governor for these months with thousands of
private legal practitioners who have families and employees to pay
rendered jobless and kobo less as no lawyer had earned any money during
these periods.
Every one of the lawyers you meet anywhere is complaining because
they have families and children in school which entails continuous
spending.
The Police Stations are bubbling with suspects who ought to have been
charged to court but are being detained beyond the constitutional
provision now that there is no court to which they can be arraigned.
The prisoners who are awaiting trial have had their cases stalled and are all crying to high heaven for justice.
When the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences
Commission (ICPC) recently blew the whistle that His Excellency the
Governor diverted the Bail-out funds released by the Federal Government
to enable him pay staff salaries, the Governor knew that it is the modus
operandum of monumental fraud where governance had been turned into
profiteering business outfits by the Chief Executive of Imo State; the
Governor began to demolish all the structures built in all the streets
in Owerri in the name of expansion of roads all with the view to
retiring the looted funds as if same had gone into project execution. At
a time the nation is facing serious economic challenges and when no
project is going on anywhere in Imo State, the Governor decided to go on
massive demolition of structures belonging to his perceived enemies.
Magnificent buildings and structures owned by known political
opponents in Imo State including the APGA Governorship candidate have
been demolished and rendered uninhabitable, thereby making the citizen
equivalent to what is now known as ‘internally displaced persons’.
Because the courts are not working, no one is in a position to
challenge the excesses of His Excellency in the State High Courts. Even
the few that went to court like Captain Iheanacho and were able to
obtain restraining orders had those orders grossly disobeyed and treated
with disdain and contempt even though they have been served on the
Governor.
In the last two months, this demolition had been going on in all the
roads and cities, even those already dualised, as if the Government is
in a position to expand and reconstruct all the roads at the same time.
No contractor had been identified with any of the roads, even as it is
known that the Imo State Governor uses his friends and cronies,
fictitious and unregistered companies to carry out his projects in order
to defraud the people of Imo State.
It is public knowledge that in Imo State, contracts are awarded orally and not in writing.
With the people of Imo State languishing in anguish and poverty, the
Imo State Governor decided to relocate the Owerri main Market being a
traditional market known as Ekeukwu Owerri, from the Owerri Municipal
Council where it is located to Egbeada in Ubomiri, Mbaitoli Local
Government Area.
Meanwhile, the stalls and structures in the market were built by
private estate developers whom the old Owerri Local Government Area and
latter Owerri Municipal Council contracted to build and operate the
market for a period of ninety-nine years (99) in order to recoup their
investments in constructing the stalls.
Those businessmen who invested their funds in the building of the
market stalls are now in danger of losing their life investments.
Not even a protest by over one thousand (1,000) Owerri women, dressed
in black or letters of appeal by the traders in the Owerri main Market
would appease or assuage the governor or make him change his mind.
He vowed to demolish the market with effect from 1st August 2016 and that no power on earth can stop him from doing so.
About 2013, the governor came up with the idea after building his
mini Government House on a land he fraudulently and forcefully acquired
from indigenes of Orji and Mbieri at a place called Spibart Road. The
Governor who sees himself as the owner of all the lands in Imo State by
the virtue of the Land Use Act, sought to remove the mechanics from
their Orji and Nekede mechanic villages.
The mechanics protested, informing the Governor that the two mechanic
villages were so captured and designated in the Owerri Development
master plan by Owerri Capital Development Authority (OCDA). They further
informed him that they have expended huge sums of money, building up
and developing their mechanic shades, installing some High Technological
Machines, some of which were burrowed underground and which could get
damaged should they be removed.
The mechanics further complained that they obtained approval from the
Owerri Capital Development Authority (OCDA) to build their shades and
even residential houses where a good number of them and their families
reside.
They finally told the Governor that they hold valid statutory
Certificates of Occupancy duly issued to them by the Government of Imo
State which had not been revoked.
They pleaded with the Governor to consider the harsh conditions of
the country’s economy and allow them to stay in their workshops and
especially as the alleged proposed site for their relocation in Avu had
not been developed and till date there are neither roads, water, light
nor any other form of infrastructure being put in place for them to
becoming an alternative of their mechanic villages.
The Governor ignored all these essentially as his desire was to
acquire the lands whereby the Orji Mechanic Village situate for
expansion of his kingdom on earth being his residential house at
Spibart Road, which is close to the Mechanic Village.
While the Governor would not want to see the mechanics around the
street of his residence, the same street where he has his private
residence (a.k.a. Government House Number 2), he allows his herds of
cattle numbering more than three hundred (300) managed for him by Fulani
cattle herdsmen to loiter and graze over within the same vicinity to
the knowledge of the public including the mechanics.
Indeed when he hosted the last meeting of principal officers and
members of the State Houses of Assembly of the South-South and
South-East, he hosted them in his said cattle ranch.
On or about 14th of July 2016, the Governor after the attempt to
persuade the mechanics at Orji Mechanic Village as to vacate so as to
enable him expand his kingdom failed, he went to have a general meeting
with all the mechanics, numbering about five thousand (5000) in
attendance. As expected, the meeting became very rowdy with the young
mechanics shouting out their opposition to being relocated.
Information in the public domain and from the accounts of some of the
mechanics who were eye witnesses had it that the Governor was so
enraged that he physically assaulted one of the mechanics who appeared
stubborn to him.
The much younger mechanic in question eventually in other to
extricate himself from the grip of the Governor pushed His Excellency
down.
In a fury, His Excellency snatched a gun from one of his security
aides who was present at the meeting and attempted to shoot at the
mechanic in question.
Luckily, his said aid from whom he snatched the gun, rushed at him
and held the gun, pointing same up to the sky, with the result that His
Excellency ended up at shooting into the air.
At this juncture, the mechanics scampered for safety with everybody running for his dear life.
Governor Rochas Anayo Okorocha seized the opportunity to invite the
demolition team made up of four (4) excavators and three (3)
caterpillars and they came to Orji Mechanic Village and demolished same
completely without leaving any structure standing.
None of the mechanics was able to remove a pin from his workshop;
hence they lost their means of livelihood and investments in a twinkle
of an eye. Till date, the Governor has barricaded the entire area with
lorry loads of mobile policemen and members of the Nigerian army from
the 34 Base Artillery Brigade Obinze.
About twenty (20) mechanics were arrested on the spot and have
continued to be detained by the Imo State Police Command on the orders
of the Governor, without any offence committed.
A good number of the vocal leaders, who had expressed their
opposition to the Governor in a bid to relocate them during that
meeting, have been forced into hiding.
These mechanics and other persons whose structures, shops, business
establishments etc had been destroyed by the Governor without
compensation and without the likelihood of anyone being compensated
forever are now crying to High Heavens for justice.
They are crying to the Federal Government especially the president of
Federal Republic of Nigeria to call Governor Okorocha to order.
In practical terms, they have now joined the ranks of internally displaced persons and they are crying for help.
The people of Imo State who were promised Job, Job, Job, Industry,
Industry, Industry, and Factory, Factory, Factory, during the campaign
are now wondering as to what hit them, with some wondering what offence
the people had committed that God should allow such pestilence to be
visited on them.
It is for the public to judge “whether the Governor who engages a
mechanic in physical fight is mentally fit to continue in the office”.
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