Governor Owelle Rochas Okorocha virtually shed tears when last Saturday October 21, 2017 he addressed delegates and legislators from the Common Wealth nations in Owerri attended the plenary of the 48th Common Wealth Session in Owerri. Besides breaking protocols in his recognition of personalities at the occasion because he was reluctant to recognize Senator Ben Uwajumogu first as the representative of the Senate President Bukola Saraki, long after recognizing his deputy and speaker of Imo and African parliament, he merely referred to Uwajimogu as “the former speaker and representative of Senate President, Okorocha warned that “performing presidents like Muhammmadu Buhari should be allowed to continue in office “adinfinitum” in Africa”. He loathed the idea of asking a sitting Governor to leave office on the basis that his tenure has ended.
According to him, African nations should model their democracy so as to allow any achieving sitting governor or president to continue in office without interruption. He described democracy as having come like a wild rain from the USA and transversing through Africa. Speaking with a glaringly broken voice, Okorocha declared “I recently found out that even if you are doing well as president there is always a time limit. We should change democracy to reflect the character of our nations”. Regretting that the time limit inhibits his tenure, Governor Okorocha announced that he has so far made 305 youth millionaires from among “those rejected and neglected youths in the villages”, by offering them N1 million each”, to start life. He likened Jacob Zuma of South Africa who had no formal education, as his role model.
He however did not inform the audience which included the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo whether it was his private funds or the un-appropriated funds of Imo State that were used to empower those “rejected and neglected youths in the villages” or as alleged funds released by the federal government for youth empowerment. Governor Okorocha alluded that it originated from USA which was a colony of Great Britain before its independence in 1717.
