Date Published: 07/04/09
IMO STATE TODAY
By Godwin Azuatalam(Jnr)
E-mail: juniormcetoh@yahoo.com
On April 28, 2007 a purported election was held after the surgical separation of the siamese twin election of April 14 [i.e. the Imo state house of assembly elections and the gubernatorial election].While the former was declared fit for existence, the latter was deemed unfit for existence.
The outcome of the election of April 28 was the announcement of Chief Ikedi Ohakim as winner and his subsequent swearing in on May 29, 2007.
It is now mid-term of his four year term of office [i.e. two years] and still Imo state is still worse off than it was before his messianic coming to office.
What he is doing and has done in Imo state is akin to performing a cosmetic surgery on an accident victim without first restructuring the facial bones, such a surgery will and must fail.
Can the dividends of democrcy be truly delivered without grassroots participation in the business of politics? I think not .So what credible, cogent and verifiable excuses can His Excellency give for not conducting council elections in Imo state up till now? .
Many who see the transformation of Owerri on the pages of newspapers, on television,on billboards or hear of it on radio should please come to Owerri and see the “cleanliness” first hand. The walkways, flowers, newly painted buildings still fail to mask the obvious dirt and decay in the metropolis. How can Owerri be the cleanest city in Nigeria when it does not have an effective waste diposal system? When a city’s roads are used as dumpsites after the monthly sanitation exercise, can such a city be clean?
Even if it were true that Owerri is the cleanest city in Nigeria, it is a misuse of terms since the cosmetic surgry being carried out by the “Clean and Green” campaign is only evident in Owerri municipal council, what of the other councils in the Owerri metropolis?
The ban on commercial motor cyclists is a welcome relief from the madness and mayhem that these motorcyclists popularly known as “Inaga” brought to the life of everyone whether you patronise them or not. But the big question is what are the efforts on ground to assimilate the over 7000 newly unemployed men into the labour market? I know that the answer might come in the form of tricycles and tricars but that, in it self raises further questions like what is the cost of these contraptions and how many of them were provided ?
It is not enough to fill the very few roads in Owerri,which are in very poor conditions with every contraption the Asian market can produce when fundamental issues like the provission of a better road network have not been attended to. So one will ask where is the Imo rural road maintainace authority and their 300 roads in 30 days campaign? Or were such roads constructed only on radio? What happens to the bad roads in the urban areas?
At a time when states like Lagos are encouraging people to use the public transport system more, the convulsive transport situation in Imo state has created a situation where any body who can, has acquired vehicles whether road -worthy or otherwise to help themselves move about, thereby increasing the occurrence of traffick jams in Imo state with problems of poor road network.
Why has the dredging of the of the Nwaorie river which the governor said ihe mapped out the sum of N8 billion stopped? And this was after this dredging machines broke many waterpipes that supply water to several parts of Owerri municipal . Till now the government that broke these waterpipes has not deemed it fit to repair them so that the people he is governing can at least have water to quench their thirst.
Why are the state-owned radio and television stations off air? Why is education which is the main occupation of the Imo people in disarray under Ohakim’s watch? Where are the jobs the governor promised us? We have not seen them.
Fellow people of Imo state, nothing in our beloved state works at least not the way they are supposed to be. This is what we get for allowing an angel we do not know to be foisted on us. To add insult to injury, come 2011 he is going to re-contest and if we fold our arms an do nothing, he will again seize power.
Remember that a child that fails at midterm can never pass at the end of the term. Also, a child who knows his onus does not require two sessions [two terms] before he can pass a class. A word is enough for the wise!!!
Godwin Azuatalam is a native of Imo state.
