DEMAND FOR PROBE: Why it is difficult to forgive Okorocha ~ Lancelot Obiaku

A** lickers of the immediate past governor of Imo State, Chief Rochas Okorocha, who are today the only known opposition to the nascent but focused government of Gov. Emeka Ihedioha in the state, must be in rude shock following the massive protests which greeted the streets of Owerri, the state capital, on Thursday.

Pointedly, the protesters were not members of PDP and Gov. Emeka Ihedioha support groups, neither were they a rented crowd, but in fact, members and leaders of the town unions of the over six hundred autonomous communities and collaborating apex zonal socio-cultural organizations who hold “the conviction that the eight years that Chief Rochas Okorocha held sway as Governor of Imo State were characterized by unprecedented and unbridled plunder of our common patrimony”, hence came to demand justice.

For clarity sake and in the interest of doubtful Thomases, the protesters further introduced themselves in the press statement which they made available to newsmen, as follows: “We are the leadership of the Association of Imo State Indigenous Town Unions (AISITU) in collaboration with Orluzurumee, Olu Owerri, Olu Okigwe, Amalgamation of Imo Professional Associations (AIPA), the students unions and the various youth groups in the State”.

From the forgoing, one can comfortably say that the entire people of Imo State [except of course Okorocha’s few and insignificant ass licking lackeys who made meals from crumbs of his loot] want the former governor probed and all that he and his connivers looted from Imo treasury recovered.

For the past couple of days, Okorocha’s propaganda machine has been busy with attempts to create the impression that Gov. Ihedioha is slow to work and that he is chasing shadows instead of committing himself to the real business of governance for which he was elected.

But it is not that the governor is not working, his only sin is seizing every opportunity that presents itself to put the public in the know of the unimaginable extent of institutional damage done to Imo State by the previous administration which also bequeathed him an infrastructurally decayed and financially bankrupt state.

Part of the governor’s sins is talking about the movable assets of the state government which the former governor and his co-travelers eloped with, and for which Gov. Ihedioha, in a wise move, set up a committee to recover. Furthermore, in the estimation of Okorocha’s slanderous wankers, the governor also erred by setting up distinct committees peopled by egg heads and technocrats of Imo descent to assist him pull the state out of the deep mire she was plunged into.

Coincidentally, the latest call for the probe of Rochas Okorocha which was demonstrated through mean street protests by Imolites came on the same day Gov. Ihedioha approved the reconstruction and rehabilitation of some critical roads in the state to include:

1. Naze Polytechnic Junction-Futo-Obinze terminating at Owerri, Portharcourt rd junction
2. MCC-Uratta road-Toronto junction.
3. Control Post- Ibari Ogwa Junction.
4. Okigwe Urban to St. Mary Okigwe.
5. Ahiara Junction- Aba Brabch runing through Okpala junction through Chokoneze to Ahiara.
6. Avutu Poultry Road. Obowo.
7. Mgbidi-Oguta Road.
8. Avu Junction-Adapalm.
9. Imo State University Teaching Hospital Orlu Rd.
10. Control Post-Umuguma Road.

Same day, Gov. Ihedioha received the World Bank/ International Development Association (IDA) visiting team to Owerri and flagged off the 9.8 billion naira Urualla Gully Erosion Control project in Ideato North, after paying five hundred million naira counterpart fund for the project which is to be handled by the highly reputed Arab Contractors.

This development gives the confused opposition elements in the state much more to worry about. They have laboured in recent days to set Imolites against Gov. Emeka Ihedioha with the narrative that he abandoned governance to chase shadows, including concerning himself with recovering movable properties belonging to the state government which were taken away by Okorocha and his agents. However, on a day Gov. Ihedioha proved to the opposition that he is indeed working, the people of Imo State requested a full blown probe of the former governor and recovery of all that he illegally took from the state’s patrimony while he held sway as the Chief Executive Officer of the state. This is nothing less than double tragedy for Okorocha’s hero worshippers who had thought that the recent propaganda and lies they have churned out were enough to erase the memories of his prodigious atrocities and to derail the focused government of Emeka Ihedioha.

It is clear, therefore, that even in an event the present administration decides to overlook the sins of the past administration and the oppressive treatment it meted out to the people of the state, it is difficult for the Imo masses themselves to forgive Okorocha, the man who destroyed their state, stole their commonwealth and tormented them so badly.

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