There have been fears of possible eruption of crisis in the Imo State, especially over an alleged plot by Governor Rochas Okorocha to install his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, as his successor.
Recall that the issue of which zone would produce the next governor of the state in 2019 has remained a delicate matter and a subject of concern to politicians in the state, especially those of them in All Progressives Congress, APC, and from Okigwe and Owerri zones, who have vowed never to allow the purported plot by Okorocha to install his son-in-law, as his successor materialise.
The Crisis started when Uche Onyeagucha, a former Owerri federal constituency House of Representatives member, let the cat out of the bag with his open letter to Okorocha.
He wrote, “I hereby write to resign my membership of the State Development Council, SDC, which appointment I was not offered to accept or reject from the outset.
“The reasons for my resignation are expressed below in as plain and simple language as possible to dispel every risk of ambiguity. Ordinarily, communications such as this are made through memos, but since it is common knowledge that you do not read such ‘irksome’ literature, I therefore chose to use this unconventional medium in the hope that your attention will be drawn to it one way or another. My reasons for resignation are as follows:
“1. Your selection of 305 persons (one per Ward) as SDC members is a mere political arrangement in your desperate attempt to foist Uche Nwosu, your son-in-law as the next governor of Imo State come 2019 despite the fact that he is from the same zone as yourself and Chief Achike Udenwa.
“2. You have used SDC members to mobilize our people to fill out fictitious empowerment and other forms through the office of your son-in-law as a way to garner admiration and make the masses see him as dispenser of State favour.
“3. I am no longer able to allow myself to be used as an instrument against Imo State workers and pensioners. I oppose your current plan to extort Imo pensioners of 50 per cent of their pension rights having previously extorted them of 30 per cent of their pensions and other workers’ salaries. A state that is incapable of paying her pensioners and other workers, her governor should not be moving around in private jet.
“4. I am no longer submitting myself to be used as an instrument to emasculate the State Civil Service which structure you have deliberately distorted and almost completely destroyed.
“5. Having fought against oppression and arbitrariness all my life as a Civil Rights activist, I’ve long observed that your administration has brazenly drifted towards dictatorship and despotism. Every effort to advice you in the contrary have failed. I am left with no option than to join forces with other progressive minds to stand up against your dictatorial tendencies.
“6. You have deliberately underfunded and emasculated our great party (APC) at every level. This is pronounced in the fact that no single branch of our Party in Imo State has a bus. Party offices of Wards and LGAs have been ceased by their landlords because you have refused to assist them to pay rents. Our Party State Headquarters is only but a shadow of what the State Office of a governing Party should be. All appeal to you on these matters has failed, making us to doubt your loyalty and support for APC which delivered you as Governor of Imo State
“7. You have impoverished all your political appointees who ought to be making contributions to fund and support our great party. Precisely, your commissioners, advisers, assistants and Transition Committee Chairmen – past and present – have been paid peanuts that turned them to beggars rather than benefactors to our great party. The situation today is so bad that every of your appointee who had been relieved of their appointments have turned into an enemy rather than asset to the Party.
“8. Your deception and continued refusal to conduct LGA elections after 6 long years have further worsened the development and growth of the party and the LGAs. I challenge you to honour your word for once by conducting LGA elections in Imo State in September 2017.
“9. The State has suffered so much from your lack of planning and hatred for due process in the affairs of government.
“Finally, I am compelled to join forces with well-meaning and egalitarian APC leaders to rescue APC in Imo State and the state itself from you.”
Prior to his letter, Onyeagucha had also on May 3, at Nigeria Union of Journalists secretariat in Owerri, during the 2017 World Press Freedom Day, openly disagreed with Okorocha on the plot to have Nwosu, his son-in-law, becomes the next governor of the state in 2019.
He had said, “There is a big issue in Imo state and that is which of the zones will produce the next governor of Imo state.
The governor said there is nothing like zoning, why is it that his deputy is from another zone and the Speaker of Imo House of Assembly from another zone?”
Okorocha awarded contracts in the state to unknown firms that either directly or indirectly belong to him or his family members, and who end up doing substandard works.
