Nigeria News
Imo’s APC Gov, Ivory Towers And X-Rated Industry
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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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack
UFC: Usman gets N584m after beating Masvidal
Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings
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