-Reacts to Attack on Newspaper Publisher
Former Governor of Imo State, now Senator representing Imo State East, senatorial district in the National Assembly, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, has taken a swipe at Governor Hope Uzodinma, who he urged to stop pursuing shadow and concentrate on addressing the heightening security challenges in the state that have assumed alarming proportion.
Governor Okorocha stated this in a release issued by his Special Adviser on Media, Sam Onwuemeodo while reacting to the state government’s recovery of Eastern Palm University from Rochas Okorocha’s strangle hold.
The release urged Imolites to disregard claims by the Uzodinma – led government that the Eastern Palm University has been recovered from the Okorocha, stressing that the claim is a ploy to divert attention from the total collapse of governance and it’s structures in the state.
Okorocha, in the release, noted that the claim of having recovered Eastern Palm University is aimed at diverting attention from the ugly and reprehensible developments in the state in the past few weeks, “as not less than five Imo indigenes had been killed in questionable circumstances, including the former Chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association NBA, Owerri Branch, Barr. Ndionyenma Nwankwo. A frontline Journalist and human rights activist, Comrade Precious Nwadike was allegedly beaten to coma recently by the governor’s younger brother and his private security personnel. The man was flown to Lagos when his condition was getting out of hand.”
“In the past two days, staff of ISOPADEC had chased away the management and locked the gates of the Commission before embarking on indefinite strike for non-payment of ten months arrears of salaries, while workers in the state just called off the strike they embarked on for the same reason.”
Okorocha also lamented on the public outcry trailing the approval of the controversial N9b loan approved by the state legislature for governor Uzodinma making the loan obtained by the current administration in just one year to N40b. “Add this to the N6b federal allocation, N52 billion naira from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), ISOPADEC funds and local government allocations and see the billions that have accrued to the state government under Hope Uzodinma without a single project to show for it.”
Senator Okorocha further stated that, “from all indications, the Hope Uzodinma government came to destroy and not to build as all structures of governance in the state have collapsed and the people subjected to untold hardship, lack and deprivation in the midst of plenty.”
