By Mbadiwe Gregory

The dictum that “the pen is mightier than the sword” is creating agonising moments in Imo state. Rochas Okorocha was elected Imo state governor through what can best be described as “polling booth defiance by Imo state electorate against ruling PDP winning machinery.” He started his tenure by embarking on development projects in nearly every nook and cranny of his state, and began to be adored by the people. Suddenly he became a subject of incessant bashing by the media; why, how?

At first, inner city blues were generated through pulling down some inner city land marks by some of the mayors appointed by Okorocha to modernise the principal cities of the state. Before the governor sacked or redeployed the mayors, anti-government sentiments had set in.

If asked to choose between road infrastructure and pipe-borne water, most of the youths that voted for and supported Okorocha as governor-elect to protect their votes, would go for pipe-borne water. But at its onset, the Okorocha-led administration said it had privatised water supply in the state. People continued to dig private water borehole. What shall become of Imo state’s underground by the time, for example, one-third of the families in the state had dug water borehole? Above all, can any city truly thrive without public water supply system?

PDP had its 27 LGA bosses on ground when Okorocha assumed office. It has been a battle of wits between the governor and the LGA bosses since then. Things got so bad that when the governor’s deputy was accused of receiving kickback from a construction company, the state PDP rallied for the deputy governor and there were muted calls for the governor’s impeachment.

Governor Okorocha is seen by many as having one leg in APGA- the party that catapulted him to power – and the other in whichever political party that can feather his nest. Many people have likened his recent involvement with the APC merger to his predecessor’s trip from PPA to PDP – to end with an outcome not favourable to the governor.

‘Azu anu uka’ in Igbo describes one who does not listen to his critics. Okorocha has earned that nickname among some Imo folks. If his aides ever read news in the media, they reluctantly joined issues with the governor’s critics; and when they did, they mostly created controversies more than the issue they came out to rebut.

Owerri and its environs have little or no industry of repute but have about 150 hotels ranging from 5 to 2 stars (many more are under construction); all the five federal and state universities and polytechnics in Imo state are in and around Owerri with a student population of about 70,000; cost of immovable property is sky bound. With its notable more female than male student population, Owerri thus serves as a Mecca of sorts to X-rated and swashbuckling tourists. Okorocha’s early acts in office included the restraining of activities of nude dancers’ clubs in the city.

Last year, Okorocha’s aides, like in a military regime, suddenly announced that Imo state University – since temporarily located on a disused college premises in the heart of Owerri city –  was on the verge of being permanently relocated to the governor’s area of ancestry, Ogboko, in Ideato South Local Government Area of the state. Their main reason: the state capital was bearing a human population it could not sustain.

The governor drew the wrath of so many people, perhaps more from not making enough consultations prior to that, than from anger of any group opposed to a state executive’s decision to find a permanent location for a tertiary institution the government finances.

With the exaggerated recalcitrance as well as tantrums displayed by those that opposed the move to relocate IMSU as proposed, they gradually and inadvertently raised a ground swell of opposition to their desires: today – home and abroad – walls of opposition to having all the five federal and state tertiary institutions of learning in Imo state located only in and around Owerri have risen among people from the other two senatorial zones of the state.

After the announcement that IMSU was about to be permanently located in Ogboko, a very well educated but oft boisterous clan in Owerri senatorial zone went to town with the claim that Sam Mbakwe-led government that founded the old Imo state University – now in Abia state – wished that Imo state University be located in the clan’s domain. The clan was joined in opposing the state executive’s move by what observers see as a cartel of Owerri city hoteliers and landlords. The groups were seen to be mostly motivated in their opposition by prospects of losing rent clientele should IMSU be moved from Owerri area. As the state government speedily raised structures for IMSU in Ogboko, some well-articulated tar brushes were speedily unleashed on the governor’s image. Okorocha did beat a retreat, but his demonisation by the groups had since multiplied.

The last governor of Imo state, Ikedi Ohakim, visited the present site of IMSU and branded the infrastructure housing it “a pigsty.” Since then, hardly any little value has been added to the place.

This year, Imo State University admitted only 4,000 out of the 90,000 applicants that were said to have qualified for admission. Where would the remaining 86,000 go to?

The present leadership in Imo state had since prayed the federal government for another federal university in the state.

So far, the massive university campus infrastructure in various stages of completion started by the Okorocha-led administration in Ogboko, and named as permanent site for Imo state University, is not being utilised. Why is the Ogboko infrastructure still closed?

A cartel of hoteliers, landlords and some locals in Owerri who obviously would lose some rent clientele if IMSU is relocated from the capital city insist they would not allow IMSU be relocated elsewhere outside Owerri Senatorial Zone; that the university infrastructure in the making in Ogboko could be the governor’s private property, ostensibly meant for the touted desire of the governor to add a private university to his Rochas Okorocha Foundation stable; and that at worst, Okorocha can invite missionaries to take over the Ogboko infrastructure to set up a missionary university.

But question is: could Okorocha be that apolitical to start building a private university for his foundation or for missionaries while sitting as governor of a state?

From Owerri area, there are arguments that IMSU was conceived to be a multi-campus institution, that since the university’s teaching hospital already exists in Orlu, and the Engineering faculty billed for Okigwe, the main campus must be retained in Owerri. Again, that Owerri wants to avoid a situation in the event a new state is created with Orlu area as nucleus as speculated, the remnant of Imo state shall be saddled with the responsibility of establishing a new state university.

In Orlu area, people contend that in addition to the other universities and polytechnics in and around Owerri area, it is being inconsiderate of others for Owerri to hide under multi-campus system to seek to host all the tertiary institutions in the state. (Imo state Polytechnic, technically in Orlu zone is a stone’s throw from Owerri which serves the institution’s staff and students).

They argue that at its optimum, the teaching hospital in Orlu has only about 350 student population in health-related courses, while Owerri area alone hosts nearly 70,000 students.

Above all, they assert that shortly after the teaching hospital was established in Orlu, notwithstanding the Federal Medical Centre in the state capital, under pressure from Owerri, Imo State government established a Specialist Hospital in Owerri, nearly similar in relevance and size to the teaching hospital in Orlu. The Specialist Hospital has had the effect of diminishing the stature and functions of the teaching hospital. In fact, shortly before Ohakim was voted out, the teaching hospital was briefly closed down, and today, has hardly survived from many years of institutionalised neglect, while its counterparts established nearly the same period in Anambra and Delta states have since blossomed.

Still on multi-campus discourse: people in Orlu recount that before Alvan Ikoku College of Education (now a quasi university), and the Polytechnic, Nekede-Owerri, were taken over by the federal government, they were financed and run for decades by Imo state government without multi-campus system. (Alvan Ikoku College of Education opened one campus each in Umuahia and Orlu, but they were closed down shortly after they were opened, thereby causing the single campus in Owerri to be bursting at the seams with population since then).

They maintain that if vicinity to tertiary institutions has become very important to Owerri comprising nine council areas, the universities and polytechnics in and around it – minus IMSU – must be enough to provide tertiary education for its youths even for the next 40 years; hence the rationale to let Orlu of 12 LGAs and Okigwe of 6 LGAs host just one university.

From Okigwe area: people here contend that the engineering faculty of IMSU as proposed is long overdue in the area.

There are choruses from the two zones of Okigwe and Orlu; they are:

•That the state executive now needs to allow the people of Imo state through their elected representatives in the Sate House of Assembly to decide where they want their state university to be permanently located.

•People in Owerri are already praying the law courts to restrain Imo state government from further appropriation of their lands, Governor Okorocha may be displeasing the majority in Imo state and thus toying with his political future if he dances to the tune of the minority cartel of landlords and hoteliers in Owerri to have IMSU located in Owerri Senatorial Zone; members of the  cartel, they say, are purely influenced by pecuniary purposes rather than interest for university education, staff/students’ welfare and peaceful coexistence of people of Imo state; that wherever IMSU is relocated in Owerri Senatorial zone, Owerri city must still continue to host its staff and students.

•It is more important that Ogboko is in Imo state, than that Ogboko is the governor’s home town.

It is even more expedient to have the youths of other areas in Imo state outside Owerri to equally embrace the motivation, enlightenment and development in any locality where a tertiary institution is located.

And from neutral observers:

Why anybody would devise reasons to insist that all the three public-funded universities in a state must remain in one area of a state – with none in the other two areas – is uncommon; and why an elected leader that had earlier decided against that could make a U-turn is yet to unravel.

If stones are to be cast on an elected governor for locating a state university in his area of ancestry, it ought to have been first to the direction of late governor Enwerem who located another university – IMSU – in Owerri, when there were already some other universities and tertiary institutions of learning existing in the city; when there were available infrastructure elsewhere on which IMSU could have been located then.

Ogboko is between Okigwe and Orlu which has infrastructure to host staff and students of IMSU located in Ogboko which is about 25 minutes drive from Owerri. A proposed engineering faculty of IMSU established anywhere in Okigwe zone shall also be closer to Ogboko than to Owerri. All these must enhance administration/supervision of the entire IMSU establishment to save costs for the people and government of Imo state.

And from seniors in Imo state:

Since it began, the non-justifiable location of IMSU in Owerri has made the choice of a permanent site for the institution elude past governors of the state; but inadvertently, or with his heft and political dexterity, Okorocha seems to have found a permanent location for the university, and for the good of Imo state. If IMSU misses the present opportunity to stay afloat, it is hard to believe any other governor in a democracy can muster enough political muscle to find a permanent place for it.

Thus, on the face of the massive space and infrastructure so far raised up in Ogboko for IMSU, and considering the large number of qualified candidates from Imo state not finding university places, it is unwise to ask the government to start all over again the rigours of acquiring another site and new infrastructure for a permanent site for IMSU. To steer a middle course, they advise that the state government harnesses the existing IMSU infrastructure in Owerri to house one or two faculties of the university.

All said, before Okorocha’s flight to APC, reading the media from the southern flank of Nigeria could give one the impression that Okorocha was a governor for special scrutiny in the country.

Did Okorocha thus take a flight for life to APC merger? Did he join for his personal, political ambitions, or did he join the merger, as he said, to help in building a more potent opposition to the menace of the ruling PDP? Time will tell.

•Gregory wrote from Lagos. E-mail: [email protected]

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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: PM News

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