By Emmanuel Addeh
The feud between the Imo State government and former Governor Rochas Okorocha, over an allegation that the incumbent governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma, ordered the invasion of a warehouse reportedly belonging to the daughter of the ex-governor, deepened yesterday with the state government describing the Okorocha as shameless and irredeemable. .
In a reaction to the invasion, Okorocha had said that Uzodinma was overwhelmed with governance and asked the governor to learn a few lessons in administering a state like Imo.
He said the latest attack on him was because during a burial in the state, the people of the state expressed their love for him , while the entire people went silent when Uzodimma stood up to speak.
But angered by the comment, the Imo State Government in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Declan Emelumba, said Okorocha would have long been a candidate for jail if not for the fact that the government wanted to follow due process to the letter.
“For a man that his hands are filled with a stinking, shameful past to be boasting of a non-existing popularity confirms that he is shameless and irredeemable,” the government said.
The government argued that it was an insult on the person of Uzodimma for Okorocha to have offered to teach him some lessons in governance.
“What is he going to teach Uzodimma? How to loot the state? How to build China roads? How to convert Government University to personal property? Or how to run ‘familitocracy’? You cannot give what you don’t have,” the state government stressed.
The statement said that it was unfortunate that the former governor had not come to terms with the fact that Imo people wanted him to be thrown into jail for his alleged atrocities in office for eight years.
According to the Imo State government, those whose lands were forcibly taken by Okorocha are angry that the present government is yet to prosecute the former governor.
The commissioner said the government was following due process in recovering the land and other government property from Okorocha.
Emelumba also explained that projects being demolished constituted risk to the lives of Imo people because of their substandard nature and failure to adhere to stipulated guidelines.
He said the state was riddled with failed roads and abandoned projects for which full contact sums were paid but yet not completed.
He also debunked the insinuation that nothing was found in the said warehouse, saying that a people who could loot cutlery belonging to Concord Hotel were capable of anything.
Emelumba said since Uzodinma defeated Okorocha in the APC primary and the main election, there was no doubt as to who is more popular.
“Hiring a crowd to attend the solemn burial of a bishop was not only childish but irreverent. The same rented crowd fought over the paltry fee they were paid in public glare,” the government said.
Earlier in a statement, Okorocha asked the government to disclose or publish the proof of ownership of all they claimed they had recovered, stressing that “all these cock and bull stories have become irritating”.
“If Governor Uzodimma is not demolishing Okorocha’s projects, he is invading warehouses in his government’s desperation to malign Okorocha”.
