Former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission,
NHRC, Chidi Odinkalu, has observed that people of the South East can not move
forward with the leadership style of the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha.
Speaking at the first Imo Good Governance Lecture held in
Owerri, at the weekend, Odinkalu amongst other reasons, alleged that pensioners
in the state were “forced to surrender their money.”
According to Odinkalu, ” On the line question is that how
many people are satisfied with the state of Imo state. I remember when the last
election was taken place and there were people who were prepared to kill for
the governor. I mean the current governor. Where we are today everybody is
recounting.
“Pensioners are being forced to surrender their money as a precondition
for getting anything at all. Regular workers are being owed and they are
required to sign away a significant chunk of their salaries.
“All the so called roads are undone and in tatters and
indeed have become a danger to a lot of people and insecurity has risen. The
government does not appear to have the attention span of the serious
responsibility of government.
“I am sure the government means very well but sometimes we
got to admit that people may be on the wrong job and I think he is. I wish him
very well but the thing is that we cannot continue to keep the wrong people in
the wrong job.
“I say here, Imo state is the most educating state in the
country, highly globalized and internationalized. It needs to begin to think of
the kind of government of leadership and structure that will reflect the
awareness structure of it demographics.
“Listen, if we Igbo are to compete at the Nigeria level in a
manner that makes our people rise up with dignity then we can’t continue to
have this type of level of governance. We got to say no to it.”
By Seun Opejobi
