Across the nooks and crannies of Imo state, people are wailing over the state of affairs in the state which has left them in despair and hopelessness.
The complaints range from lack of payment of emoluments, bad roads, abandonment of activities at the local governments, to difficulties in feeding among myriad other issues. The major contention as glimpsed from the series of complaints remains inability of the government to honour its obligation to the workers.
Four of the aggrieved workers who stormed News Echo office last week expressed anger that their salaries were not paid since 6 months while the governor keeps travelling about in private jets at the expense of the state.
Speaking with News Echo one of the guests who chose to speak anonymously expressed delight at the emergence of the paper which he described as truly the mouth piece of the people and urged it not to be corrupted by government and its agents.
He appealed to the paper to speak vigorously for the truth because according to him the people who should speak for us are all sleeping “as if there are no persons inhabiting Imo again while the house crumbles.;”
When challenged that persons and media houses have been throwing up the issues of bad governance he thundered back without allowing the reporter conclude, “where have you heard the traditional rulers, the men of God and priests, the labour leaders, the town union people confront the governor on what is happening in the state.
“Is this how our state should be. Are these people supposed to keep quiet while we all rot away? Are we not their subjects? Tell me one good thing that is happening in Imo. It is like Uzodimma is comfortable drowning us in hardship. Imo is finished”.
It was gathered from them that the governor and his family last Wednesday travelled out with two private jets. It was revealed that while the governor’s wife and children travelled in one of the private jets, Uzodimma himself travelled with another to Ondo for the governorship election there.
It would be recalled that News Echo in an earlier edition had frowned at the regularity with which the governor travels out by private jets abandoning governance issues and spending deep into the treasury of the state while workers languish to death and other projects remain undone.
Reports from across the local governments of Imo speak of terrible state of affairs in Imo which is driving people to untimely death. When our reporters went to town to feel the pulse of the people it was a tale of woes everywhere you go.
According to one of the respondents fielding question on his business, a shop owner, who gave his name simply as Ogu harshly responded thus, “are you asking me, are you not in this state, are you not seeing things for yourself? Tell Uzodimma that the road is no longer good if you are from the government.
“Since he came it is not just bad road, everything in Imo is no longer working. Sales are very low, workers complain and those owing are not paying because they are not paid. Uzodimma and Buhari have killed us he lamented.”
A top civil servant in one of the ministries at the Secretariat who refused to disclose his identity said that, “we are finished, the government is only deceiving themselves, not we, did we ask them to buy vehicles for us, and they now turn back to collect the money from our salaries that they are not even paying regularly”
He had unkind words and made some unprintable comments against the government which he summed by saying that there is no government, “we only just come to work for the sake of it”.
