The Ohakim Scam goes Full Circle in Imo State
The Ohakim Scam goes Full Circle in Imo State
Thursday, 05 February 2009 13:59 By Stephen Nwahiri
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The Ohakim Scam goes Full Circle in Imo State
By Stephen Nwahiri
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Some days back, I received an email forwarded to me by a friend. Titled, “AS TYRANNY TAKES OFF IN IMO STATE”, the mail highlighted the state of evil that is evolving in Imo State since Ikedi Ohakim decided to run a huge scam complex in the name of governance in Imo State. Before this and at the wake of the ill-advised closure of the Imo State University, someone, ostensibly a student I don’t know forwarded a text message to my phone to the effect that the arbitrary closure of Imo State University, which is running into several months now, shows that Imo is really in the hands of the gods. How prophetic that sounded as Imo citizens warm up to the emerging scenario of a state that is undergoing the bitterest experience in the hands of a rapist who treats and manages the state treasury as if it belongs to Ikedi Ohakim, Achike Udenwa, Maurice Iwu and no one else.


In the forwarded mail, which was meant for circulation in the media, the writer, highlighted what he saw as the dawn of naked tyranny in Imo State, with the hounding of dissent voices and opinions that are not recruited to the huge propaganda complex in Owerri presently. He captured the experience of one Maximus Uba, a critic of Ohakim’s government who was allegedly arrested and detained by the state police command for questioning the rationale of the obviously stupid and unrealistic budget of over N130 billion Ohakim proposed and got approved for 2009 fiscal year. He went further to state that several individuals have been marked for elimination by the Ohakim regime and with what I observe going on in Imo State at present, this is not a hoax. The other day, I heard Ohakim has approved the demolition of Optimum Hotel, just besides the Assumpta Cathedral Owerri owned by the former speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly, one Kelechi Nwagwu who recently dismissed Ohakim for what he really is, a big scammer that is taking Imo State to the cleaners under dubious guises. The dressing down came at the wake of the quarrel between Ohakim and his godfather and former governor, Achike Udenwa who is now Yar’Adua’s Minster of Industries and Commerce for which Ohakim reportedly hurried off to Abuja to beg Udenwa who, with the discredited chairman of INEC, Maurice Iwu, stole Ohakim in as governor in April 2007.

In the mail, written by one Ikenna Samuelson Iwuoha, most of the sordid happenings Ohakim has been perpetrating in the Owerri government house were highlighted and these included the intimidation of contrary voices to the revelry in Owerri, the uncensored looting of the Imo treasury under very phony and fake programmes and the collaboration of both the hen-pecked Imo House of Assembly (Imo house of parody) and the state police command in this rape of the state treasury. Any one who has been observing the unfolding scenario in Imo State since April 2007 cannot but agree totally with Samuelson on these and various other unstated issues,

The fact is that Ohakim, still overwhelmed by the magic that brought him to the Owerri Government house, is having an extended party. When he came newly, there were several allegations making the rounds that he was a practicing 419er before he came to his unexpected lift. This was confirmed when he made the notorious 419er, Dominic Egbukwu, alias Damaco of the Otokoto fame, the head of his scam project, Clean and Green. Tremendous public protest and outcry was to force him to replace him with one William Amadi. The project has excelled in voracious propaganda and inhuman demolition of people’s sources of living while Ohakim and his fawners hold an unending party in the name of governance.

Three days ago, angry students of the Imo State University, who have been rusticated for several months as Ohakim furthers his dirty tricks on the school stormed the government in their thousands denouncing the evil regime in Imo State and calling for the immediate opening of the state. They defied the barricade mounted by Ohakim’s allied forces, which has become a sad feature of the Imo government since April 2007 to scale the barricade gates and were only dispersed through live bullets fired by Ohakim’s overzealous security forces.

Today, Ohakim carried a minor reshuffle in his cabinet. When people expected he would free himself from the dire clutches of Udenwa and Maurice Iwu, he rather deepened it through his so-called cabinet reshuffle, which trails Yar’Adua’s own reshuffle in confusion and tardiness. He had sold out the news that he was to dissolve his cabinet and this remained in the news for weeks before he summoned the courage to that. First, he announced a cabinet sack and quickly reversed himself by freeing out just five commissioners and few special assistants. He then brought in Amanze Obi, the chairman of The Sun editorial board, who landed a juicy contract with the INEC leadership for his paper immediately after the record-breaking fraud that attended the April 2007 elections. He had been in the dirty but dead-on-arrival project to launder the horrible image of Iwu and his INEC since after that scam and in furtherance of the priceless debt he owed Iwu for rigging him in as Imo governor in April 2007, Ohakim made his man-Friday his Commissioner for Information. He eased out the amiable and lovable Steve Osuji, his Chief Press Secretary, who never appealed to Ohakim because he was not thug and in his place, he recruited Bright Nwelue, a practicing sycophant who ran Udenwa’s failed propaganda machine as his chief press secretary.

To demonstrate that he is hardly his own man, he fortified his cabinet with the men that ran the failed Udenwa government and those forced on him by Iwu whose brother holds the position of Secretary to the State Government and his daughter, Special Adviser in a move aimed to sharing the booties of the state between the troika of Ohakim, whose only brother presides as his chief of staff, Udenwa whose men hold all the juicy appointments in Ohakim’s cabinet and Iwu who wrote the fictitious result that brought Ohakim to power. The resources of the state go in this same troikal arrangement and this has ensured that while Ohakim runs a big propaganda complex, Imo State remains the least state among the 36 states of Nigeria that is recording any meaningful progress apart from the noisome and empty chorus of ‘clean and green’. Imo is a state where one cannot point to any meaningful project going on or completed. The few roads Ohakim has done are some village roads in his Anara, Mbano axis that have no known economic value but suits his parochial interests, just like the man in whose image he is mimicking, Achike Udenwa. Like in the eight years of Udenwa, Owerri Zone has been bardly treated as demonstrated in the protest from the zonal leaders after Ohakim presented his phantom budget to the state assembly and no viable project was located in the nine local councils that make up Owerri zone. Mbaise where his tea-serving deputy comes from remains perhaps the worst hit in Ohakim’s governance of Imo State.

This is the chameleon that sometime ago said Nigerian leaders should be stoned

Please follow this link http://www.imostatenews.com/ to read imo state news online

I dont know why u attack something you dint understand. No wonder Nigeria has not grown, u criticise everything. Na wa O! may God help u guys. I pray u find yourself in the seat of power someday! Go and find out who samuelson is before u start attacking the governor. Nonesense!

aboki musa

This is the chameleon that sometime ago said Nigerian leaders should be stoned

kia just saw this now, hmm it look like u are referin to me, cuz i have been an advocate to stoning all the northern leaders, sultans and emir

and in accordance to what u believe in, thats should be the order of the day

when thats it done, then u can as well stone our igbo criminal

we dnt have problem with that, do u

hmmm still wonderin how abacha wife dey do shakara at her 60th, oh my hubby was a caring man, kia kajiwo

for bisi-olatibo show back them well few yrs ago

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I dont know why u attack something you dint understand. No wonder Nigeria has not grown, u criticise everything. Na wa O! may God help u guys. I pray u find yourself in the seat of power someday! Go and find out who samuelson is before u start attacking the governor. Nonesense!

i always say that one day nl will surface in ass-hole rocks

post like this has proof it, he just registered, first post, off he goes

well my guess is u are a benefitary in that place eh?

chop chop and die eh?

this is the problem

most Nigerians think any imformation typed on the internet is correct

people should learn to understand that of all the news you read some are motivated by ulterior motives

especially in Nigeria where news editors live at the mercy of their pay masters

IMO STATE people who live on the ground will tell you that the man Ohakim is doing his bit

Thank you mike. Dnt mind all this vulgar cursing infidels who gat no jobs but go to cybercafes's and look for who to slander. nemesis would soon catch up with u. I will only forgive them if they are not from Imo State but if they are, I pray that the soil of imo be unconducive for them

^^^


u are fool!!

do something for your state

we as nigeria as sick and tired of morons we have in power

if na chop, fine chop 10% but do something with 90%

why u de worri over some rubbish news rather worri about the pot hole in your state

abi una no get shame, de same oyibo u come logde for their place, still de laugh u

damn it

Wetin na?

tell me who the fool is, the man who encourages a hard worker to work well or the critic who just sees no good in hardwork. Ohakim is doing fine and good. Why hasnt the PDP cacus impeached him or even fought him, yet he's a PPA man; party wise. I only pray u get into power 2moro, Mr. Iyke mann. Imo is a confirmation of a working governor. I dnt work for ohakim, neither do i have any relationship with him. Imo State is a testimony today! I'm sure if u ask this same iykeman, he would criticise all the governor including my Mr. President. I just feel for dis no good for nothing Nigerian. All u do is pull down and castigate your brothers, tell me one thing u have ever supported. U should be hanged!

ddonobi:

tell me who the fool is, the man who encourages a hard worker to work well or the critic who just sees no good in hardwork. Ohakim is doing fine and good. Why hasnt the PDP cacus impeached him or even fought him, yet he's a PPA man; party wise. I only pray u get into power 2moro, Mr. Iyke mann. Imo is a confirmation of a working governor. I dnt work for ohakim, neither do i have any relationship with him. Imo State is a testimony today! I'm sure if u ask this same iykeman, he would criticise all the governor including my Mr. President. I just feel for dis no good for nothing Nigerian. All u do is pull down and castigate your brothers, tell me one thing u have ever supported. U should be hanged!

Guy apart from owerri what is happening in other parts of th state?

@ddonobi

u shd be a fool to say that imo state is a testimony. i think u ve bin clean and greened . as for ppa and pdp . it was the pdp who put him there so why wld they impeach him

ddnobi

if im a governor i will lock ur ass up!!

dnt know much about imo, but i mistakenly drove pass the last town on the boundary b/w anambra and imo via onitsha-owerri road, dnt know how far owerri is from there

but not too impress from what i saw there after driven pass some big church

yes i remember that town, amuoka or something

Before u bury ohakim, ask urself what the past 8yrs in Imo State was used for! The reason why i support ohakim is not about what he's done but the time frame in which he transformed a state that was silent for 8yrs! There are 2 states which were silent for 8yrs and they were Imo and Edo states. there was no structure for even the newly elected to tread. Samuelson ikenna's shop was demolished that why he's been writing funny articles against ohakim. i've followed his issue and found out that he's just frustrated. How can someone sell kerosine in the middle of the road. He had a big shop where all manner consumers buy kerosine from. he was asked to relocate but he refused and his shop was demolished. Shall we continue to live in a lawless environment because of small small profits? Can u point out one good fact about his write ups? I live here in owerri and i'm happy that ohakim's on board. I follow up with activities of this govt and from my analysis, he's doing well. the only people that are not happy are the politicians who are complaining about money. Udenwa shared this money for 8yrs,  did u see any meaningful development in imo state for 8yrs? in two years, we have CLEAN & GREEN, IMO RURAL ROADS MAINTENANCE AGENCY, OPERATION FESTIVAL, IMO MUNICIPAL TRANSPORT SERVICE, our streetlights are working every night which did not work for 8yrs, etc. Abeg, make una helep me judge dis issue,

D fact that u drove through ajengunle does not conclude that fashola is not working. Everywhere cannot be developed at the same time. It is not everywhere in london that is developed, we still got slums. So pls, give ohakim some credit! what year was that?

Do not criticise owerri if u dont live here, thats wickedness!!!! I f u want to criticise owerri, come and live here for 1 week and u will judge.

Thank you

i was at Owerri 2 months ago and i must say Ohakim has tried.dont know abt Other towns though  But Owerri was really neat and better than the past years.
@dnobi,where is this Samuleson shop located?

i think somewhere around orji or so, cant remember for now but will post it once i find out, but this was his letter to the governor sometime after the court of appeal:


27th March, 2009.



His
Excellency,

Chief
Ikedi Godson Ohakim

Executive
Governor of Imo State.





Sir,



CONGRATULATIONS.



On behalf of myself, my wife (Chioma), my 41/2 yr old son (Nwachinemerem) and my 21/2yr old daughter (Adannaya), I sincerely congratulate you on your victory at the court of Appeal , Port- Harcourt.

You fought very hard to earn this victory. Nonetheless your Excellency, I want to open your mind to let you know why I decided to be very angry. I am angry for five reasons but I will mention only one which is the purpose of this letter.

His Excellency, my businesses were destroyed in 2007 and as a result, I could not take care of my family responsibility. I was the biggest kerosene dealer in Owerri. I was also into engine oil business. My provision store was also displaced. In this situation, I became helpless.

I personally wrote three different letters and sent them to you through your former Chief Press Secretary and Chief of staff. I was ignored because I was a “nobody”. I said “ok”. Let me prove that I am somebody.

His Excellency, if you call for my statement from the SSS office Owerri, you will confirm my story. I speak the truth always without fear.

I seriously need compensation to start life again. My wife is from your place MBANO. Conversely, you are my children’s NNAOCHIE.

Though I am not a sycophant and will never be one to your leadership, I will henceforth be bringing positive suggestions to move Imo State forward through my write – ups and articles.

His Excellency, I was offended and I equally offended you and your leadership.



Once again, accept my sincere congratulations.



Yours faithfully,

Ikenna Samuelson Iwuoha

Facilitator – SLAP Initiative

0703-2934037

ikennasamuelson@yahoo.com

Plot 98 Ikenegbu layout, Ext. Owerri.

i wonder if you could do better as govrnor

k ddonobi

next time, i will try to touch down to owerri

the thing is that u might not really appreciate owerri if u dnt know how it was. Owerri was dirty, I mean very, very, very dirty!!!! But today, its so neat that it won the cleanest city in Nigeria last year. Thats the spirit. You are welcome anytime!

na lie i will apreciate the cleaness

na the way forward anyway

cave time, should be gradually get rid of

but how come abia state is so dirty i heard

worse than onitsha

ddonobi:

the thing is that u might not really appreciate owerri if u dnt know how it was. Owerri was dirty, I mean very, very, very dirty!!!! But today, its so neat that it won the cleanest city in Nigeria last year. Thats the spirit. You are welcome anytime!

I lived in aladinma for up to 20 years before moving out last august.I already the the good state of owerri.what i am interested is places like okigwe,orlu mbaise i mean things like intertown roads.

@ asha 80
haba, how much is the monthly allocation. you can only judge a state by what it gets. about N2 billion monthly? and u want them to pay salaries of over 40,000 staff strength and still develop all the cities? na wa o! na magic? nwayo nwayo,biko!

ddonobi:

@ asha 80
haba, how much is the monthly allocation. you can only judge a state by what it gets. about N2 billion monthly? and u want them to pay salaries of over 40,000 staff strength and still develop all the cities? na wa o! na magic? nwayo nwayo,biko!

by the way where is garden park located now?i heard its former place is now been occupied by NSE.

just by the douglas junction, opposite oceanic bank, far far far better than where it used it be with enough parking space and bigger facilities. The same man was compalining when he was told to move but he's the most happiest man. u wont imagin how much he now makes everyday,

ddonobi:

just by the douglas junction, opposite oceanic bank, far far far better than where it used it be with enough parking space and bigger facilities. The same man was compalining when he was told to move but he's the most happiest man. u wont imagin how much he now makes everyday,

lol,Never noticed they have moved Garden park.i think i know were u are talking,somewhere opposite NITEL But there used to be an amusement park there,what did they do with the old park?
I agree with asha,he shld extend his hand of fellowship to places like Mbaise,Amaigbo,Obinze,Njaba etc.Udenwa don try for Orlu ppl

ddonobi:

HEY FRIENDS,  I JUST UPLOADED THIS PROJECT, THIS MORNING,  BEEN WORKING ON IT FOR OVER 4 MONTHS. KINDLY CRITICISE THE PORTAL. ITS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND IN NIGERIA. THE IDEAS ARE ALL ORIGINAL, NO PHOTOCOPIES. I WANT TO WIN AN AWARD FOR THIS!!!!! Shocked

THE GOVERNOR WILL BE VIEWING IT THIS EVENING, NEED TO MAKE ALL ADJUSTMENT BEFORE PRESENTATION. I,VE NOT SLEPT SINCE YESTERDAY. THE NEXT STAGE IS THE E-PAYMENT INTEGRATION.

PLEASE, EVERYONE CRITICISE! I'M STILL UPLOADING THOUGH


http://www.imostate.gov.ng

not an expert just a concerned citizen

is there any plan to engage the young generation on the future of Imo State through this website?

I mean do you plan to have the chat tool up and running?

and how about the online forum . . .  why does it pop up in a new window when clicked? is it better this way? because I personally don't like pop ups on my computer I dont know about others.

I also think you should take out the 0% propaganda written on the galleries . . . . let the public decide for themselves what they make of your effort. Because that slogan '0% propaganda' can be turned on its head by your political opponents and will be a very good catch phrase to ridicule the efforts of this administration.

Thanks Mike,

We just purchased the chat room apps, will integrate in the next couple of weeks. Regarding the forum, it doesn't pop up here, pls, which browser are u using? I dont think its poppin up o! Kindly check again

pls, more opinions,

I am using internet explorer

may be I need to recustomise my browser

Obi is our man truly moving back to PDP?

Honestly dont know, U know its a decision one he has to make with wisdom. i pray that God directs him o! No be small thing. He's a smart guy and i believe he would weigh all sides b4 choosing where to camp!