Connect with us

Graffiti

Has Rochas privatised Imo State? By Uche Ezechukwu . . .

Published

on

In October last year, my friend and the then governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Aliyu Maigatakarda Wamakko invited me to accompany him to Owerri, to attend the wedding ceremony of the second daughter of Governor Rochas Okorocha.
The occasion was a carnival of sorts and could easily qualify to be described as a royal wedding. The traffic jam that overwhelmed Owerri that day lasted till late into the night and became a testimony to the vehicular and human traffic that descended on the capital city on that Saturday.

The following day, Governor Okorocha took his guest and his entourage on a sight-seeing tour. One had expected that we would be taken to outstanding projects that he had embarked upon for the benefit of his people. Rather the two places he took us to had identical ramifications; they were both altars of self-glorification. First, we were taken to the ultra-modern Ochiedike Diagnostic Centre, which Owelle Rochas enthusiastically and proudly pointed out was named after his late father.
He also pointed out unabashedly, that a major street had also been named after him.
The centre had some of the most sophisticated and up-to-date equipment for deep medical investigations, and it was immediately obvious that even if the adequate personnel were to be found to operate such equipment, it would be next to impossible to find enough patients that would be able to afford their services, bearing in mind what such services cost elsewhere. And in any case, the man that took us around and explained the working of the facilities was a white – most possibly, an Israeli.
From there, we were taken to the outskirts of the city where Rochas ushered us into his palatial private estate, which from all indications, had just been completed. Members of the Wamakko team first mistook the place for a teaching hospital – the logical place to come to after inspecting the Ochiedike Diagnostic centre. But Governor Wamakko’s eyes almost popped out from their sockets when Rochas announced that it was, indeed, his private residential home. To say that we were astonished would be an understatement.
The castle occupies an area that was as expansive as a standard school compound and apart from the baroque-like castle that stood at the centre, there were other posh detached buildings that formed an arc around the extreme corners of the expansive compound. The main building, which was a two-storey edifice, with expensive décor and walls adorned with Michelangelo-type of paintings and frescoes that would make the Vatican envious, might contain at least 25 bedrooms, not counting the many expansive sitting rooms and lounges.
Owelle Rochas made it a point to take his guests to different sitting rooms, and later to the Louis XVI-type dining room. Meanwhile it was obvious that neither Wamakko, a man who wears humility like a cloak, nor the other mostly Fulani members of our entourage were impressed. In fact, they were disgusted to say the least and started voicing their disgust even while we were still there.
Obviously reading the mind and body language of the visitors, a former senator who worked closely around Okorocha, started telling me the story of how, several years ago, the governor had acquired that expanse of land from SGEN, a construction company that had used it as a camp at the cost of N14 million and had later developed it. The man is intelligent and must have known that rather than being convinced or impressed with his story, I was clearly disgusted and prayed for Governor Wamakko to take me out of that place of display of disgust.
Of course, knowing that the place was built whilst Rochas was already governor, the ex-senator did not insult my intelligence by telling me that it was built with Owelle’s personal money.
A member of Buhari’s campaign team had informed me that during the APC campaigns, PMB had arrived at the place and had praised the complex, mistaking it to be a new Government House, but had frowned when told the truth about the opulent edifice. Unconfirmed stories are currently making the rounds that villagers who live along the road to that palace are being relocated to create a befitting access for Emperor Rochas.
The most noticeable feature of Governor Okorocha’s imperial reign in Imo State has been that, as the citizens look on in bewilderment like mass-hypnotized zombies, their governor is riding roughshod over them and their assets. The most nauseating proof of this is that Okorocha is effectively privatizing the state and has literally turned the Imo commonwealth into a family affair.
A few years ago, a young man serving in his government took his first daughter, Uloma, for a wife. Reportedly, Rochas has turned that son-in-law into the main power behind the throne in the state. Uche Nwosu, the said son in law, is the chief of staff to the governor and is said to be running the machinery of the state administration with his father in law, because there are currently no commissioners in the state. If you scratch any informed observer in Imo State, he would tell you that Uche Nwosu is the de-facto deputy governor.
A major symbol of that obtuse power privatisation is that a key building in the Government House has been renamed as Uloma Uche Nwosu Building. The picture of the building has recently gone viral in the social media.
The talk in Imo State is that the governor’s son-in-law is being prepared to take over from Okorocha as the next governor.
As if that is not incestuous enough, Rochas nomination of Professor Anwukah as the minister representing Imo State has a very familiar family-business ring to it. When Anwukah, the former vice chancellor of the state-owned university left the services of the university under controversial circumstances, he found himself as the secretary of the state government. He was occupying that post when his son, Uzoma got married to Uju, Governor Okorocha’s daughter on October 11, last year. It was that marriage that I attended with Aliyu Wamakko that has now become a licence to make the Anwukah family key shareholders in the privatized company that Imo state has become.
In spite of the petitions that were filed against Anwukah, he was able to scale the senatorial screening. Do not ask me how the petitions were withdrawn.

Read also: S’East govs’ to meet as Biafra protests spread

The other instances of arbitrariness by the Imo state government which started from his first term with award of contracts without proper documentation and other forms of executive rascality are legion. If the workers and other segments of the society are taken care of while this family profligacy goes on, it would be tolerated to an extent. But here are the workers at different levels suffering all manners of indignities, especially the non-payment of their wages and allowance and their governor embarks on oratorical rhetoric to cover up every manner of indignity to which the people are subjected.
Last week, the nation was treated to the indignity of Imo workers being thrown out of 38 public medical facilities where they had been working because the imperial administration had “concessioned” them, an euphemism for selling them off. He has just announced the suspension of the plan on account of loud outcries, and as we learnt, intervention from Abuja.
It is doubly tragic that Imolites had jumped onto the Rochas bandwagon in order to punish out the obviously less-high handed former governor, Ikedi Ohakim, unaware that they were purchasing copper at the price of gold. The only Imo persons today who are not complaining are the few hangers-on and sycophants. To make matters worse, Imo people, reputed to be some of the most educated in the East, have become benumbed and helpless. Most have even started believing the propaganda from the endless government publicity machinery.
Yet, many people swear that the current deafening silence of Imo State is no longer normal and that any small thing might trigger the pent-up public anger that is now noticeable everywhere. When that happens, they claim, the people would definitely not be assuaged by the ubiquitous billboards of their man’s handshake with President Obama.
Somehow, many political resolutions in the state were engineered by the church, on account of the very religious nature of the state. The alleged assault of a Catholic priest by Governor Ohakim’s convoy sealed his political fate.
Most people in Imo State are again looking toward the crucifix and their wielders for redemption. Two weeks ago, a popular bishop reportedly tongue-lashed Governor Okorocha, after refusing his donation, which he told him to go and give to the workers who he owes. Is the rapture time for the emperor-governor at hand in Imo State?

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now