–Says it was gathering of old friends, appointees
A renowned technocrat,political analyst and former chairman of retired permanent secretaries of Imo state who recently won Imo NUJ man of the year award, Comrade F.I Agba has described the “6th Imo stakeholders” meeting organized at the instance of governor of Imo state,senator Hope Uzodinma as a program designed to parley with old friends who would in return sing praises for governor .He said what was tagged Imo stakeholders meeting did not pass for such.He described it as waste of state resources which should not be repeated.
Agba sought to know the basis of which the so called Imo stakeholders were selected, adding that you can’t talk about Imo stakeholders without the civil servants, pensioners most of who haven’t been paid for years.
He opined that if the governor was sincere to hold a people and result oriented stakeholders meeting, he should have made it an elaborate one by either visiting different local government areas of Imo state and addressing everyone who showed up for the occasion, instead making it a gathering of few old friends.
According to Agba, such program provides opportunity for the people to interface with governor, not an event for governor to have his ego massaged by friends and appointees.”The real stakeholders are not the appointees but those who voted governor into office”, he affirmed.
Continuing, he said,”except there is any other definition of “stakeholders”, in my opinion, every Imolite by virtue of being an Imo person is a stakeholder and must be treated without discrimination. If you must address them, it has to be holistic.The right thing is to use the media to talk to Imo people and get their feedbacks.That is how to govern a state”.
Agba maintained that till date, he doesn’t know what was discussed at the stakeholders meeting, same as majority of Imo people,saying that such event would have provided an avenue to chart a new course for Imo people, not for the governor’s friends to sing praises for him as was witnessed during the program.
When asked his views on the governor’s failure to name sponsors of insecurity in Imo, Agba stated that at first he was against such decision by the governor to name anybody as sponsor of insecurity, knowing how government is run and knowing that it is not part of governor’s schedule of duty.However, since the governor made such statement to Imo people, it was expected that he keeps to his promise.
Agba said that no responsible government makes such policy statement and rescind its initial position.Doing so will mean insulting the electorate.
