The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Imo State has undertaken a close-up on the three-year-old administration of Senator Hope Uzodimma in the state and returned the damning verdict of woeful failure.
According to the party, the administration which came on board following the controversial judgement of the Supreme Court on January 14, 2020 has dismantled all institutions of democracy and enthroned full-blown dictatorship.
The party which made its stance known in a statement signed by its state Publicity Secretary, Collins Opurozor said bloodbath, economic stagnation and mass penury pockmarked the three years of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-controlled administration in the state.
The party also listed infrastructural decay, poor healthcare, collapse of education, dearth of agricultural productivity, conscription of the political space and violation of human rights as issues that have become the order of the day under Uzodimma’s watch.
The PDP equally accused the administration of destroying the local government system, describing the situation as very huge tragedy that has befallen the state.
It regretted that the local government system which is the only channel through which governance could be delivered to more than 70 percent of the population of the state has been run aground.
The PDP claimed that the APC administration led by Uzodimma has nothing to show for the N180.6billion which it received from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) for local governments in the state.
It therefore called on the governor to show Imolites where he kept the huge funds that accrued to the local government councils in the state.
Opurozor further alleged that Governor Uzodimma prevailed on the state legislature to vote against financial autonomy of the local governments, legislature and judiciary so as to make himself an emperor and enslave the people.
While flaying the state legislature for voting against autonomy of local governments, legislature and judiciary, the party commended the PDP members of the legislature who voted in favour of the autonomy of those democratic institutions.
The opposition party also expressed indignation over the unbridled borrowings which the Uzodimma administration indulged in thereby raising the debt profile of the stare to N220billion.
The party claimed that the Uzodimma administration has doubled the debt profile of the state thereby making Imo the highest indebted Igbo state.
It said; “Fact to be noted is that Imo is presently the most indebted Igbo state, with a debt profile which stands at N220 billion. That means that the regime of Senator Uzodimma has doubled the debt profile in less than three years. And the fundamental question is: “What has the regime done with over N100 billion it has borrowed so far”?
“It is curious that in all of the landmark borrowings by Senator Uzodimma, no effort has been made to redraw the industrial landscape of the state by re-jigging investments in the hugely vital agro-industrial sector where Imo has major comparative advantage. Adapalm has remained moribund, Imo Rubber Estates and Avutu Poultry Farm have remained comatose.
“Equally, Nsu Tiles Company, Umuna Bricks Factory, Egbema Power Plant and Inyishi Aluminium Extrusion Plant are some key investments with the capacity to rev-up the local economy and employ a vast majority of the teeming unemployed Imo youths. Yet, they have been left to rot away, even when Imo under this anti-people regime of Senator Uzodinma has been officially designated by the NBS as the unemployment capital of Nigeria”.
The PDP described the contracts for the construction of Owerri-Orlu Road as conduit pipe to siphon Imo funds.
It wondered why same contracting firm, Craneburg Construction Company could charge N56billion to do a 36-kilometre Owerri-Orlu Road which comes to N1.5billion per kilometer when it constructed Lekki-Epe Road in Lagos State and the Ibadan Circular Road in Oyo State at costs that did not exceed N450million per kilometre.
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