HURIWA charges Uzodinma on public trust, confidence:

Warns Imo house members not to cross carpet to APC

By Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria (HURIWA)

“For the controversially produced governor of Imo state courtesy of a highly disreputable verdict of a panel of seven supreme court of Nigeria’s justices, the best bet is not to commence the governance of Imo state with convoluted distractions of some misplaced probe of past administrations, but to implement deliberate peoples centered policies and programmes to win the hearts and minds of Imo citizens who see the judgment of the supreme court as dubious and inexplicable. Most people in Imo state are asking just like Augustine of Hippo although they are asking in hush tone the following: 'If Justice be taken away, what are governments but great bands of robbers? The new man in Imo State should convince the people that he is not an usurper of their mandate but a Child of special circumstances. He needs to win public trust and confidence which are waning massively in Imo state since after that unethicsl supreme court judgment throwing up the new status quo in the Imo state government house in Owerri.”

With above charge, the nation’s leading civil Rights advocacy group – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has also asked governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo state to settle down to the core task of rebuilding the devastated state by the systematic implementation of law-based developmental blueprints, rather than engage in shadow boxing, and the soap-box drama of pretending to be fighting corruption.

“We urge the supreme court’s produced governor of Imo state to work for Imo people and not for his spiritual warrior Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka or for the Abuja establishment that purportedly waged internecine war that led to the substantially illogical and unsound judgment of the panel of the supreme court that eventually truncated the tenure of governor Emeka Ihedioha and rocketed the candidate who came fourth in an election to the position of the winner. The new Imo state governor should build upon the ground breaking and extraordinary developmental blueprints already being put in motion by his immediate predecessor.”

“Imo state people want a governor who will sustain the policy of transparency, open government and accountability. Imo people want a governor who must continue to a logical conclusion, the World Bank’s assisted rural roads works that are already going on which crisscrossed virtually all senatorial zones of Imo state. Imo needs a silent worker whose good works should speak for him and not a talkative. Imo does not need a noisy governor who governs only in the media just like Rochas Okorocha.”

HURIWA has also warned the state House of Assembly members to resist the temptations of massively crossing over to the political party of the newly minted governor (All Progressives Congress) and abandon the political parties under whose ideologies and programmes their elections were made possible just as the group has charged the voters to recall any member of the state House of Assembly that would behave like a political prostitute and cross carpet into All Progressives Congress (APC) the party of the new governor.

“We are not opposed to systematically probing the administrations of the past especially that of Rochas Okorocha that has nothing on ground to show for spending 8 years as governor, but we think the governor should let the anti-graft bodies to do their independent investigations and retrieve all public assets and cash stolen allegedly by the officials of the past administration prior to the brief period of governor Emeka Ihedioha. "The Imo State governor must restore trust and public confidence. This is important to guarantee legitimacy of his authority.

"Hope Uzodinma must resist any attempt to introduce settlements for Fulani herdsmen known as Ruga because most people in Imo are saying that Abuja produced Hope Uzodinma as Imo governor to implement the anti-people’s policy of taking over ancestral lands of the people to set up RUGA settlement for strange herdsmen.”