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Home COLUMNISTS Imo governor and Amohuru Ezeship dilemma

Imo governor and Amohuru Ezeship dilemma

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The machinery of government of Imo State is now rickety. A cabal can quarantine a governor from full awareness of the facts about his territory for over one year and no head is rolling. It shows that there is disconnect between Imo State governor and the people. And this represents a sad commentary on governance worth recording in the Guinness Book of Records.

 

A cabal led by one ex-permanent secretary, Nze Chukwuma Nwachukwu, and six others seems to have vowed to do anything to prevent light from entering Amohuru Community by due process as enshrined in the community’s constitution and have held sway for a year, bribing their way into positioning a surrogate as Eze and forging documents to sustain that surrogate in office. This ugly scenario speaks volumes of disconnect between a governor and the governed and a governor and his public service in Imo.

 

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Three revolts have since been recorded in Amohuru Community since March 30, 2014 when the governor erroneously recognised Anthony Anyanwu as monarch. By garrisoning our community with hired policemen to prevent the people from showing up at Owerri to puncture their plans to foist a stooge of Nze Nwachukwu and his cohorts on my people for mercenary purposes, a first revolt was born. Citizens of Amohuru were prevented from coming to Owerri on March 30. I prevented a breakdown of law and order by securing a pendency document from Aboh Mbaise High Court concerning a matter initiated by Anyanwu and his cohorts. This moved Governor Rochas Okorocha to institute a Panel of Enquiry into Amohuru Ezeship. The panel submitted its report, which indicted Nwachukwu and his gang. The cabal paid public servants with doubtful character to mutilate records and keep the error that Anyanwu was Eze in public records up till this day.

 

A second revolt occurred when the cabal attempted to foist Anyanwu on the community. The people, without prompting, rose in defence of their rights of self-determination. They disowned a number of people with acts of total rejection. This revolt did not stop the cabal in its tracks. The cabal bribed its way to the police authorities to harass the community and cow them into submission to the will of the cabal. But it failed woefully. Twenty citizens, including yours truly, who resisted the designs of the cabal were accused of acts of arson and kidnapping at Abuja and were interrogated at Zone 9 Umuahia. Their mission failed for want of evidence.

 

The police were paid to keep mum to a complaint I raised subsequently requesting action against Nwachukwu and his gang for false accusation. The matter has been left in abeyance since them. A similar accusation had earlier been levied against one Jude Chukwu, secretary of Eze Selection Committee, at Central Investigation Department (CID), Owerri, for planning kidnap and murder against Nwachukwu. I debunked the allegation and bail was granted.

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Nwachukwu had also paid State Security Services (SSS) to interrogate me and other members of Amohuru Community on the allegation that I was preventing his stooge from exercising his mandate as Eze. Of course, that allegation was dismissed when the panel chairman was invited by the SSS. I had prevented a revolt of the people.

 

The Imo State governor should have been privy to all these, but aides have successfully excluded him from the state he governs. I had made at least 10 attempts to speak with the governor. His aides, who are aware of my national and internal stature, have prevented him from acceding to my multiple requests. Yet I am a member of Imo State Council of Elders, and secretary of Board of Trustees of South East Communities Development Association as well as member Imeobi Ohanaeze. I am now convinced that the governor has chosen to ignore Amohuru Autonomous Community.

 

The final revolt of the community occurred last Sunday, December 7, 2014, when it became apparent that despite rejection of their false king by the community, the cabal planned to celebrate the conquest of the Amaohuru stool. The panel report that indicted Anyanwu and found for my legitimate election had once again been ferreted out of the records of a government ministry. A revolt was consequently enacted by youths, and the roads were barricaded against Anyanwu and his cohorts gaining entrance to community church and hall for purposes of enforcing this rape of the public will of Amohuru people.

 

I now want to let law enforcement authorities know that it is the worst act of sabotage of the state to enthrone false leaders on the basis of gratification received.

 

Impunity in criminal accommodation of miscreants damages health and welfare of citizens and structures of governance, and should render governance incapable of delivering services to the people in right idiom in the long run.

 

A failed state is the ultimate status following such ruinous tracks. Nigeria is on the steep downward slope into failure on account of my multiple evidences of rape of our common will and commonwealth. A governor must be held to account when he fails to apprehend this level of corruption in his polity. I have a duty to resist a government that is leading its electorate astray for the sake of inheritors of our undivided patrimony.

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