Article: Governor Rochas Okorocha’s One Year in Office

Governor Okorocha Taking Oath Of Office Last Year

By Kenneth Uwadi

It is one year now since Governor Rochas Okorocha  came into power. He came into power  on a tidal wave of voters  support for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). He dispatched Chief Ikedi Ohakim in the governorship election, which saw the APGA  take the top post in Imo State. Okorocha was sworn in as Governor of Imo State on May 29th last year. He promised to reinvent Imo and help create a climate for business and job growth. I once watched him in a workshop organized for his executives, introduce his postulated economic theory, the one he called “Rochanomics”. In that workshop he  said that ‘Rochanomics’ is a political principle based on liberation from political bondage. The ‘Rochanomics’ political philosophy to him  is grounded  on  restoring  of the fundamental essence of government, which is  to create jobs ,create an environment where the people are secured in their rights to good life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

One year of his four year tenure is over. The question is how has the Okorocha administration performed in Imo State so far? Is the Imo ‘Rescue Mission’ on track or do they need to go back to the drawing board?  As usual his spin doctors have started celebrating his one year performance on the pages of newspapers with adverts just to buoy their egos and selfish interests. As I write, Okorocha’s  one  year of achievements in office is still running in several Newspapers and online blogs. In their spin they  are saying he is not only a performing Governor but one who has  more than the needed credentials to take over from President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.

The irony of the matter is that our governor who is expected to wake up from his slumber is the one dominating the pages of Newspapers in the name of one year anniversary. These spin doctors are enumerating non-existent projects and policies as the governor’s achievements so far. We need to ask the spin doctors if insecurity and youth unemployment in Imo State are ways to celebrate ‘Rochanomics’. 

According to Abraham Lincoln, You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

If Imo citizens didn’t know who Okorocha was before, they do now. According to a recent SP poll, 88.6 percent of the 400 randomly selected Imolites  dislike strongly  Okorocha’s  one year  performance in office . They are praying he make amends for the better in  his second year. They believe his actions are harming the state. Imo people have  shown their anger on the governor twice this year. He has been booed twice. They booed Okorocha when he was addressing workers at the State Secretariat last month. In March too, he was booed during one of his state of the state address in Owerri. He was speaking  to people of the state  telling them that Civil Servants  can  now beat their chest that their salaries come to them by 25th of every month and their 20,000 naira minimum wage has been paid. The Governor was interrupted with shouts of No! Na lie!. The people began to boo him. The State SSG, Prof Anthony Anwuka was also  booed and jeered this year at the May 1st workers day celebration. In Imo politics and governance, public goodwill is everything. If there is any politician who should understand it more than others, it is the Imo governor  who rode on the wings of massive public goodwill to the Imo government house.

Okorocha’s problem started when  immediately he came into power ,he sacked  thousands of workers employed by the last administration. The youths that were employed to beef up the public service in Imo state were sacked and they remain without jobs till date.Secondly,the people got angry when he introduced military style of leadership in a democratic dispensation.

Anele, an employee with ISOPADEC, gave Okorocha  a solid low grade  in his one year in office.“I think he’s not done a good job,” Anele said. “I think he’s not got for himself pretty good advisers, and that’s why he is having a lot of problems with the masses. A good leader begins with a good team and uses the best qualified. A situation where MDAs are subjected to generate their salaries and allowances; where contractors are subjected to fund government projects to completion without payment, where  more than 10,000 Imolites were deprived of their legitimate jobs without payment of their entitlements is bad’’

Obinna from Emekuku, in his own remark said he is down and angry about Okorocha’s one year in office. “ I got angry when he lied  that he paid 12years pensions to retirees whereas he merely paid 3months arrears to them . I hate it when any one tries to attract undeserved applause’’. Anayo from Umuoji,did not appreciate Okorocha’s efforts and vowed not to vote for him if he plans a second come back. ‘We all witnessed how he  rebranded all the Hilux vans in the State to  lunch a security outfit to secure our people but yet security situation in Imo State is worsening. Check out  the current alarming rate of kidnapping, and armed robbery in the State. Checkout the embarrassing way and manner criminals abduct Imo citizens demanding ransom before their release. This is failure on the side of government. To me with high rate of insecurity in Imo state  ,his one year in office is a dead one’’

Sidney,a businessman in Owerri is not on the Okorocha  bandwagon. The introduction of a fourth tier Government and appointment of  community speakers does not impress Sidney. ‘’I am against formulating policies in the state without due process;  policies such as  the creation of community speakers without the input of the house of assembly. Our governor knows that it is illegal to impose an unconstitutional process on the people. Nigeria does not have fourth  tiers of government. What we have is third tier and it is enshrined in the constitution.We must make the legal local government councils  functional in the constitutional way.’’

Okorocha’s words and actions have left  some persons  feeling a little disillusioned. “I found the governor’s style far more  autocratic,” Nnenna said. “Okorocha  has governed more like a right-wing extremist. Why must he be relocating workers to their communities? Why must he cripple all Ministries, Department and Agencies of government in the State by starving them of funds. He even  made promises we have come to believe are not within his proven capacity to deliver. He promised N100million development fund to each of the LGAs in the State, which till date is yet to be realized. He also promised another N1billion to each of the LGAs which too has not been realised. The so-called N20,000 minimum wage has not been paid to civil servants. N11,000 is what is paid to Imo state civil servants.’

Ijeoma  a student said that Okorocha has done well  in the area of road construction  but that the majority road works are all at their teething stages and should not warrant any self glory or applause. According to her ,he has awarded major road contracts, rehabilitated many,especially in Owerri which gulped into millions of Naira.She  however lamented  that  the award of these contracts did not follow due process.

Iwuji  and Jideofor  both disliked Okorocha’s approach to free education in Imo State. To them impress to run the primary and secondary schools have not been made available, which invariably affects the quality of the free education  in Imo State. Even the  N100 a month  stipend to public school children was last paid in November 2011. They see the promised free education scheme and mouth-watering bursary for all Imo State undergraduates as mere political sweet talk. They believe that he can never sustain the proposed  free education for tertiary schools.

Madu an unemployed graduate, said he cannot praise the governor in his one year in office because for one year now he  could not create jobs for Imo youths rather he sacked more than  10,000   Imo State graduates in the State Civil Service. To Madu, he  has no reason to sack the workers.He believe that the governor has failed in the area of job creation. “Imo State unemployment rate remains far higher than the national average, our state  has been downgraded again, and investors  are eager to escape the abysmal business climate. All in all, it is a grim picture this one year.” Madu said .

Now the question on the lips of Imo people is “if Okorocha cannot give good account of one year with surplus money coming from here and there, where will the magic  come from, also how can one expect performance from Owelle  now that the economy is battered in terms of revenue whereas precious time and money were  wasted on frivolous matters.The governor is borrowing too much money and wasting too much on useless jamborees such as the upcoming Imo Youths summit in America.

My friend Herbert Kinsley once asked, who is the rescue government actually rescuing or for whom is effort made in that direction? He also asked who borrowed the N10billion and N50billion respectively in 2011, and which were approved as supplementary budgets by the Imo State House of Assembly? Who borrowed N6billion for repayment of purported loan owed to UBA PLC by the past administration? Who borrowed another N6billion for supposedly counterpart fund for UBE, ETF, MDG, etc? Who, also, borrowed N5billion for fruitless adventure of re-surfacing good and motorable roads in Owerri municipal? Who, too, borrowed a whopping sum of N10billion for phantom infrastructural development? They should not forget that nobody  that fails to perform well in public office will  escape the wrath of Imo citizens whether you are redeeming, reforming or rescuing.

(Uwadi Writes From Mmahu-Egbema, Imo State, Nigeria)