IMO: Uzodinma’s attacks against me caused by envy, says Okorocha

FORMER Governor of the state, Rochas Okorocha, has said his successor, Hope Uzodinma, is waging war against him because he is bereft of ideas on how to run the state.

Okorocha had,  two days ago, said Uzodinma was displaying criminality and thuggery in governance.

He said this against the background of his arrest and 14 of his loyalists by  security operatives over the unsealing of a property seized by the Imo state government.

Okorocha was later released after the intervention of, according to him, “the presidency”

However, four days after the incident it appears the state government has decided to pull down another property belonging to the Senator representing Imo West.

According to a  statement signed by Sam Onwuemeodo, his special adviser on media, Okorocha accused Uzodimma of pulling down the gate and fence of Reach FM, a radio station said to belong to the former governor.

He also accused Eyinnaya Onuegbu, commissioner for lands in Imo, of claiming that the property was built on what should have served as a road for residents.

The statement read in part, “The building housing the Reach FM Radio was acquired by Senator Rochas Okorocha about twenty-five years ago. And subsequent administrations, both military and civilian, had never raised any issue about the property where the radio station is located,”.

It added, “And that untenable claim by Onuegbu was to justify another nauseating action. Before the radio station, you get two hotels and six other buildings in front.

“Beside and behind the station, you also have several other buildings. And there is no way a building at the centre of other buildings, including hotels, could have been on the road.

“The pulling down of the fence and gate of the radio station, with indigenes and non-indigenes of the state working there to earn their living, had come two days after the same people had invaded the Royal Palm Hotel with armed thugs and men in police uniform, who claimed to be from the Government House.

“They had earlier looted the hotel under the guise of sealing it.

“To all intents and purposes, Chief Uzodinma has used his governorship to create a new Imo State where bloody clashes, killings, thuggery, kidnappings, and tension, now pervade or reign.

“Aside Okorocha, other Imo people had either been attacked, arrested or detained and homes and offices invaded like that of NLC in Owerri.

“We are not expecting these attacks occasioned by envy, vendetta, conspiracy, hatred, and lack of ideas for good governance to stop. But we shall only continue to inform the public whenever they carry out any fresh attack.

“But obviously, Governor Uzodinma shall not win. What is important in every war is who wins and who loses. Governor Uzodinma cannot win, because no one wins war on the basis of falsehood and deceit.”

There has been no love lost between Okorocha and Uzodinma ever since the latter assumed office, via Supreme Court ruling that sacked Emeka Ihedioha, as governor of Imo State.

Apart from seizing some of the former governors property, Uzodinma has signalled move to rename a private University belonging to Okorocha.

He has also sacked 108 oil workers employed by the former governor during his tenure noting that the workers were “illegally employed”.