OUR IMO GOVERNMENT OF SHARED FRUSTRATIONS

By Nwadike

The cold mood that greeted Imo state that very day Sen. Hope Uzodimma was announced governor by the Supreme Court has never left the state. Till date, the state has been immersed in mourning, loss and pains even among die-hard supporters of this aberration called government. They have remained mere hopeful where ordinarily, they should be swimming in the pool of realization of their hopes.

Check it out; from civil servants who work at our Local Government secretariats to their state counterparts; from traders in our markets to worshippers in our churches; from politicians to contractors; from students to teachers, and even among the so-called “beneficiaries” of the government’s appointments who may be tempted to counter my views here; none has added a single prosperity index to himself, let alone friends and families. It has been just hopeful and _Waiting for Godoth_.

I once defined the word “Hope” as an imaginary concept that's not a reality. Hope is "...a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen” which never happens. The key words here are “feeling”, “desire”, “expectation”.
When we hope, we desire, expect and want something. It is a constant state of being, that yields no physical result.

So, when friends asked me why I quickly chose the part I play today, I explained that I understood this name, hence our prosperity expectation is way far from being a reality. It will remain an illusion for Imolites, except for the few Oluwole Market traders now in the system.

Stumbling on a letter by a group known as the Imo State Registered/IMSUBEB Contractors recently, where they were calling for urgent intervention/payment for their ongoing 2016 and 2017 IMSUBEB Action Plan Jobs, I laughed and hooted at one of their members who incidentally is a friend and a member of the APC in my area. The day he was celebrating the Supreme Court’s judgement despite winning a job contract under the Ihedioha/PDP government, I remember telling him that he may experience sorrows instead of prosperity from the present administration. Today, he terms me a prophet.

How could our people; our own very people from Imo state invest their hard-earned resources in building for the state only for a governor to simply sit on their joy? Sadists should make no mistakes about this because I am not a contractor. But that dead body inside the coffin was once a living body. What affects the eyes equally affects the nose. Prosperity would have been widely shared when people work and be paid for their works.

These contractors, in their letter dated 8th of May 2020, and sent to the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Abuja for which a copy was obtained by this writer, disclosed that jobs awarded to them in December 2019 had not been paid regardless of their commitments towards ensuring speedy completion of the jobs.

“The Imo state government through the Imo State House of Assembly passed a resolution requesting the governor, Distinguished Sen. Hope Uzodinma to revoke the ongoing UBEC/IMSUBEB jobs. The jobs (2016 and 2017 Action Plan) awarded to us by the immediate past administration of Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha followed due process. Attached herewith is a photocopy of one of the Newspaper publications that carried the job advert.

“We have attained different milestones without mobilization. To our greatest surprise, the state government rather than pay us according to milestones covered went ahead to advertise new jobs as published on the Nation Newspaper of 4th May 2020, page 16-viii, see attached. Before now, we have written an open letter to the Imo State Governor, personal letter and equally wrote to the Ag. Chairman demanding for our payments but to no avail, see attached”, the contractors’ letter reads in part.

It should be noted that these contractors are professional contractors who are both members of the APC, PDP, APGA, Accord, etc. and their jobs which are all about our schools in Imo state are equally benefitted by both children of APC, PDP, APGA, Accord, etc., hence politicizing matters around these jobs would be against the spirit of education development in the state.

It should be noted that these contracts were also won by most of the politicians who are today members of the Uzodinma’s political family. Of note are the now heartless members of the Imo state House of Assembly who personally grabbed these jobs, sold them to these professional contractors only to turn around today to ask the governor to cancel these jobs. What a wickedness!

It should also be noted that these contractors borrowed monies from banks, money lenders and some even sold their properties and gave out others as collaterals to raise monies for the deliverance of their jobs. I leant that one of them has just been ejected out of his personal home by the court for failing to repay money he borrowed from the bank for his job.

What is even disgusting, revolting and repulsive to good consciences is that the Federal Government through UBEC as a major counterpart funding commission, has long released the money for these contractors, and the money has been there, and wickedly sat upon in the Zenith bank by the governor who is now making frantic efforts to divert it and apply it to awarding new jobs of his own.

Imolites should remember that this was exactly how the previous administration of Governor Rochas Okorocha started, and at the end, souls were lost and many contractors who were our kits-and-kin perished. Their cries in agony still haunt our dear state. Signs of semblance of that era are here again with us, but some out of political blindness are simply clapping even as our governor jumps to his peril.

At the end, it’s not only this writer that is suffering from the backwardness that Okorocha had pushed the state. All of us are in for it. Same way that at the end of this Shared Frustration government of Uzodinma, all; not just them, would feel the afflictions.

Sen. Hope Uzodinma is encouraged to quickly constitute the board of the IMSUBEB to enable it pay up these contractors, especially as he was the one who directly ordered them to return to sites when he came on board as the Imo governor and they obeyed him. The fact that the Emeka Ihedioha government reserved this money at the bank for these contractors is cheering. But more cheering is the fact that the Federal Government had even sent another money for a new round of jobs for the 2018/2019/2020 UBEC/IMSUBEB Action Plans. Uzodinma should be gratified with this and even more to come. Uzodinma should be strong enough to conquer this tempting greed and avariciousness so that he retains himself a better place for himself in the Imo Hall of Fame history.

Greg Nwadike GOC is from Uzoubi-Umuna in Orlu LGA of Imo state and can be reached via Whatsapp only on 08099088443.

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