Imo state has had its own share of good and bad governors, some performed wonderfully while others used the state as a personal wallet ruining infrastructural development and putting the state into rot and chaos.
Achike Udenwa
Chief Achike Udenwa ruled from 29 May 1999 to 29 May 2007 under the PDP party mantle. He was the first Democratic governor of the state after the military regime.
Achike Udenwa concentrated his effort only in Orlu, his home senatorial zone, leaving other parts of the state blank. It was Achike Udenwa who opened the floodgate of development in Orlu zone. His most striking achievement was the establishment of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Imo State University in Orlu.
This and other infrastructure developments he initiated in Orlu remain the legacies of his 8-year administration. The Orlu – Ihiala road project had been completed.
He renovated the Imo state Concorde Hotel and brought it back to its glory days. He also brought the Imo Broadcasting Services (IBS) back on the air with all new and advanced broadcasting equipment. The Imo State newspaper – The Statesman- was resuscitated. The civil service offices long-neglected were equipped with modern office equipment – Typewriters, Computers, Desks, and Office supplies.
But as we celebrate the successes of Governor Achike Udenwa’s tenure, it is important that we point out the areas that he lacks commendation. The areas of education, unemployment among skilled and unskilled, and business development were in shambles.
In the area of business development, the state lacked a truly honest business-government relationship. Too much bureaucracy had damaged the interest in investment in the state.
He could have done more for the state but couldn’t. After Achike Udenwa ended in 2007, little was added to Imo State.
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Ikedi G. Ohakim
Chief Sir Ikedi G. Ohakim ruled from 29 May 2007 to 29 May 2011 under the PPA / PDP mantle.
Ohakim’s framework for a robust Imo economy opened the space for sustained industrialising also led to the establishment of the Nigeria Stock Exchange in Owerri with their office opposite the state government house.
Critical infrastructures such as good roads, water, and electricity, etc, are required for any state to grow industrially. In these areas the Ikedi Ohakim administration performed marvelously.
Despite that water was part of the MDGs target, Ohakim knew that industries cannot flourish in the state if there was no water.
He did not destroy the water pipes laid by the Mbakwe era with borrowed money but rather went ahead to renovate Mbakwe’s water projects that had become moribund and also built new 1,395 water schemes both in the rural and urban communities. The water board known as Imo State Water Development Agency (IWADA) operated with good equipments and highly skilled manpower.
Ikedi Ohakim also saw that good roads were pivotal to the growth of industries in the state. To address this challenge, Ohakim constructed 450km of roads while 325km others were at various stages of completion before he left office in 2011. Through his Imo Roads Maintenance Agency (IROMA), he rehabilitated 270km rural roads and committed N150M for tarring them under RAMP before he left office.
This opened up the rural communities and linked them to the urban areas in order for industries to survive, resulting to a robust economy under Ohakim, despite the biting world economic meltdown.
He also created the Imo State Investment Promotion Agency (ISIPA) under the chairmanship of Chief Ernest Ebi who was the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and now the Chairman of Fidelity Bank PLC. He also held the first-ever Imo Investment Summit in Owerri. Even Anambra State copied her Anambra State Investment Promotion Agency (ASIPA) from the Ikedi Ohakim administration, including her education template.
Ohakim built the Imo State Internally Generated Revenue to ₦5.8bn by 2011, from a miserable position he met it in 2007. He deliberately built a robust economy for Imo state. Berthing his industrial clusters initiative, he banned commercial motorcycles (okada) in Owerri and introduced commercial tricycles (keke), engineered investors confidence in the government and brought back the middle class by not only creating the conducive atmosphere for small scale businesses and local contractors (whom he called development partners) to thrive but also keeping to the terms of the contracts. He also created the cleanest and healthiest environment for investments. These deliberate actions of the Ohakim administration led to the huge N5.8bn IGR of the state in 2011 (while still in a recession), better than most neighboring states in the Southeast.
Lifting the 15 years embargo on employment in the state’s civil service, Ohakim employed thousands of qualified Imo sons and daughters, capping it up with his novel 10,000 jobs employment scheme which gulped monthly $450M or N5.4bn annually.
Through the Imo Job Center and Finishing School, the Ikedi Ohakim administration placed over 2,000 job seekers on jobs within and outside the state while it also trained and secured jobs for another 300 graduates in the state. This is aside the over 8,000 youths and engineers employed under IROMA, ENTRACO, Agro-Nova, etc. This sterling results can only be the scorecard of a successful administration anchored by a brilliant and selfless leader.
Owelle Rochas Anayo Okorocha
Owelle Rochas Anayo Okorocha who took over from the Ohakim mandate ruled Imo state from 29 May 2011 to 29 May 2019 under the APC mantle.
Okorocha’s strong belief in free education marked him out and garnered support for him. His campaign trail in 2011 rode on the free education mantra, which many didn’t believe was possible. As it were, all of Okorocha’s accomplishments in Imo state can be classified under education and infrastructural re-development as evident in Owerri urban, Orlu, and parts of Okigwe. But the rest of the communities were largely neglected.
When Okorocha came, Imo State had a functional Local Government system, and Development Centre Councils with periodic elections that produced elected council chairmen and councilors. But eight years after, the twenty-seven LGAs in Imo State are dead and buried.
During the reign of Achike Udenwa and Ikedi Ohakim, the LGAs served as conduits through which power was deployed to the grassroots, which necessitated rapid development in the communities.
When Okorocha arrived, he rather created his own Obnoxious Local Government system and called it Community Government Council (CGC) with Government Liaison Officer (GLO) and others.
(Whatever that meant). Along the way he abandoned these self-created systems and the entire Imo State collapsed. This is because there cannot be Imo State without her LGAs.
Okorocha directed all funds going to LGAs to himself, and dished out stipends to the masses who own the money through hand-picked stooges as TC Chairmen.
But Ihedioha has promised to recover Imo LGAs from its present ruin. Luckily it was Ihedioha that headed the Committee on Local Government reforms while serving as Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives.
Before Okorocha came, the Dan Anyiam stadium Owerri was one of the best in Nigeria. But today, the State-owned football Team, Heartland Football club has been banished to Okigwe stadium, because Dan Anyiam does not measure up to NFA standard.
Heartland FC was for the first time in the history of Imo State relegated to second Division under Okorocha’s regime. The club managed to return to the elite division now due to the personal contributions of some Imolites who felt humiliated that dear darling Team could be so abandoned, and this was a team that had won many National and International laurels before Okorocha arrived the scene
On the education sector which the outgoing regime usually boast of, it is a story of motion without movement.
Based on the indices available, Imo State, which used to be among the first four in WAEC and NECO now comes a distance tenth. Many Departments in IMSU have been de-accredited. Number of Imo born students into IMSU have also dropped due to Okorocha’s “highest Bidder” system of Education.
In some secondary schools in Imo, only two Teachers take on over six hundred students in all subjects available. Teachers are not paid as at when due.
A quality education is better than a quantity education.
Okorocha’s regime sunk millions of Naira into Agriculture with nothing to show for it.
Remember “Ikuola Nkwu?” mantra. At a point Okorocha reduced working days to only three days for Imo workers to engage in farming. But with such bizarre system which raised much eyebrow in the entire Federation, what did Okorocha have for Imo people on the Agricultural sector now he is leaving?. Instead, he went and packaged Rice grown elsewhere and called it “Imo Rice”.
On the area of road project, it is true Okorocha embarked on too many of them. But the question now is; as he leaves office next few months, how many of these roads are still standing today?
Instead of planting Trees that will not only beautify the State, but also provide shade and control erosion, Okorocha erected over one Hundred thousand pillars on Owerri Roads, with Iron bars, which have no socio-economic value to Imo people but death traps in the future.
Rather than put street lights, the out-going administration “planted” artificial palm Trees whose meaning no Town Planner can decipher.
In the Area of Judiciary, Okorocha did not mince words when he told Imo people immediately he was sworn in that he abhors rules and regulations when he said he will not adhere to “due process”.
For the Eight years he was in office, Okorocha did not obey one court order, except those that suits his whims and caprices.
The Imo Health sector was functional with modest General Hospitals across the twenty seven LGAs of the State.
Okorocha rather came with the idea of twenty-six bogus General Hospitals that remain under construction until he wounds up office next few weeks.
On socio-contract with the masses, Okorocha left Imo State more divided than he met it.
After eight years in office, he wanted to foist another Orlu man in office, when Orlu had garnered a total sixteen years, with Okigwe Eight years and Owerri just Sixteen months.
It was his draconian attitude to office, and disregard to Imo people that pitted him against the masses and good riddance to Jack Boot Government.
At a period Imo people were begging for meaningful projects that will benefit the poor masses, Okorocha was busy moulding statues of Rogue Presidents facing corruption charges in their home countries.
And these statues took millions of Taxpayers money to be erected.
Okorocha spent Hundreds of millions of Naira to put up Christmas Trees, even when civil servants went home without salaries. Certainly, this is a frivolity Ihedioha will not engage in.
In the area of security, Okorocha inherited a well-organized Imo vigilante organization that was disciplined and with a civil orientation group of educated forces, with a focus to serve and protect Imo people.
But as Okorocha recedes back home, his successor will be left with a security outfit called Imo security Network that was molded in the image of their sponsor, whose orders they only obey.
Unlike the Imo vigilante and Imo orientation corps of yore, the Imo security Network has an ideology tailored towards their financier as a person and individual, and not as a Group working for the State and its citizens. At a point, it became a Gestapo organization terrorizing Imo citizens it ought to protect.
Therefore, when Okorocha’s Media office headed by FC Jones and Sam Onwuemedo rants about the humungous achievements recorded by their principal, it only means that they are gauging the out-going Governor based on the opulence they see around him, and what themselves have acquired personally as individuals without putting the ravaged Imo masses into question.
Emeka Ihedioha
Sir Emeka Ihedioha’s short-lived tenure lasted from 29th May 2019 to the 15th of January 2020 under the PDP mantle.
He was ousted when the Supreme Court gave the landmark verdict that moved Senator Hope Uzodinma from the fourth position to the first in the 2019 gubernatorial election in Imo State.
All through his seven-month reign, Ihedioha made sure he marginalised developments in Imo State and made it a core Mbaise-Ikeduru-Owerri affair leaving out most of the major communities and areas that constitute Imo state such as Orlu, Orji, Oru-East, Nekkede, and other major parts.
He focused on the affairs of the areas where he garnered the most support during the 2019 elections.
There was also the problem with his predecessor Senator Owelle Rochas Okorocha.
Ihedioha had a tough time with Okorocha as he vowed to retrieve every Imo asset, which he claimed were looted by his predecessor. He also set up many commissions of inquiry to investigate every aspect of Okorocha’s administration.
In all ramifications, this distracted him from looking into more important affairs of the state, painting an image of him being a major witch-hunter for the Okorcha administration.
Ihedioha also assumed the mantle of leadership at a time some of the infrastructures in the state, especially roads were in a bad shape. The rainy season then did not help matters as flooding created craters on almost every road. So as the days wore on and he was not able to do much because of the rains, he was hurled a barrage of criticisms.
Despite the initial hiccups, however, Ihedioha was able to set up an administration that he could work with. He also appointed several aides and set up a structure that appeared smooth sailing.
However, when he was about to gain some level of stability, especially with many ongoing road projects, the apex court struck.
For the people of Mbaise nation – Ihedioha’s home – this was the most unsettling of all, given that they were looking forward to having a civilian governor of Imo State of Mbaise extraction, which had eluded them since the creation of the state in 1976.
Hope Uzodinma
Although still ruling, Senator Hope Uzodinma has already made a bad name for himself. His controversial rise to power reins in Imo state, his devastatingly low turn out of supporters during the 2019 elections and his use of the Nigerian Supreme court powers to intimidate and force the real election winner, Emeka Ihedioha out of the gubernatorial seat has all added to the taint in his image.
He recently celebrated his 100 days in office and he was very vocal about how he has uprooted the state from the rot which it was thrown into by the past Governments and how he would surpass the achievements of Governor Sam Mbakwe. He declared that he was working hard to make sure Imo state will be great again.
In recent times, pensioners have besieged the state capital, blocking off major roads and sealing off the government house demanding for what is rightfully theirs.
No one can morally justify any frivolous expenditure in a state where youth unemployment is estimated to be nearing 38% which is almost double the national average of 19.58%.
In Imo, millions live under the international poverty line of US$1.90 a day, with workers’ salaries and pensioners entitlements not paid when due for lack of funds and these competing priorities.
From one protest to another, a state where ghosts handle majority of the office works, where the Government doesn’t take the responsibility of paying her workers their due salaries and pensions. Hope Uzodinma has indeed made a mockery of the civil service system put in place to favour hard-working individuals sweating every day to eke out a living.
According to the organized Labour in Imo, they have been owed salaries from February to April when Uzodinma assumed office as Governor.
Imo people have over the last 20 years demonstrated electoral consciousness and many are vigilant and will remain so throughout the tenure of Governor Uzodinma. The governor must rise up to the significance of his name to convince Imo people that he has the vision to restore and renew hope.
It is better if he streamlines his government, repudiate inefficiency, and have around him lieutenants that can generate leadership capital.
He should leverage on the abundant human resources at home and the diaspora to move Imo forward. He should as a matter of urgency ensure ordinary Imo workers and pensioners are paid their salaries and entitlements regularly. The focus of Governor Uzodinma in the coming years should be on prudent management of our collective resources.
THE EASTERN UPDATES
