Gov Okorocha of Imo State: A school of thought believes that since the Governorship Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the last general election, Chief Emeka Ihedioha, approached the Election Tribunal for redress, Governor Okorocha decided to play for time because of the uncertainty associated with litigations.
Careful political watchers in the state have, however, pooh-poohed this line of thought, especially as both the Election Tribunal and the Court of Appeal sitting in Owerri, gave the Governor the green light to continue in office.
A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, who pleaded anonymity, hinged the Governor’s inability or unwillingness to constitute the SEC on two platforms.
These, according to the obviously angry politician, include but no limited to the current cash crunch bedeviling the state and the apparent and self-imposed confusion, the Governor foisted on his administration.
“It is no longer news that the state government ran into a financial mess and could not pay its workers. This pushed workers to down tools. The same is also true of pensioners, who are owed several months of pensions. It is not even clear if government has fully cleared workers’ salaries as we talk now”, the man reasoned.
He therefore submitted that “because the governor never believed that money would not continue to flow the way he found it, he never slowed down in spending”, adding that he only tried to apply the brakes when the federal allocations nose-dived.
The man recalled that soon after Okorocha came on board, he introduced the Community Government Council, CGC, which is unknown to the Nigerian Constitution. Since the establishment of CGC, Imolites can hardly point to the benefits of the political contraption and how it is funded.
Currently, Governor Okorocha has set up 37 task forces and no fewer than 10 zonal head committees”, instead of constituting the State Executive Council. Having established these task forces, the state is, from all intents and purposes, now administered by members of the task forces. Much as the setting up of task forces has been a regular occurrence in Nigeria, it is an aberration to run the affairs of the state via task forces.
The governor named his sister, Mrs. Ogechi Ololo, as the head of the Task Force Committee on City Beautification and has turned lawmakers to task force operators. The Speaker, Mr. Acho Ihim, heads the three-man task force in charge of motor parks.
Since Imo lawmakers appear to have become appendages of the executive arm of government, through membership of the many task forces, it is now open for speculation how they can effectively carry out their oversight functions in the state.
Most respondents to Saturday Vanguard’s inquiries pointed to the fact that members of the Governor’s immediate family, in-laws and a handful of trusted friends, run the affairs of the state. They are the power brokers that would continue to shape and possibly populate the expected cabinet. The same persons, the respondents argued, have remained in government since 2011 and are being moved from one public office to the other.
All efforts made to get some explanation from the Government House, including a text message to the Governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Sam Onwuemeodo, did not yield results as of press time.
