Okorocha Running Imo Like Hollywood Theater And Apprentice Workshop–Amadi

The former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Com­mission (NERC), Dr. Sam Amadi, has described Imo state un­der the leadership of Governor Rochas Okorocha as a Hollywood theatre and an apprentice workshop with scattered tools.
He described Okorocha's seven-year reign as an experience in de­struction than consolidation, which has adversely affected the so­cio-economic condition of the people of the state.
While taking questions from news­men at the first distinguished pub­lic lecture of Paul University, Awka, Anambra state, Dr. Amadi who is also aspiring for the state governorship seat under the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), promised to take the state away from the ‘theatre’ if voted into power.
He said he would not have con­templated contesting for the posi­tion if not for the numerous anoma­lies existing in the state. “I’ve fully declared to run for the governor­ship of Imo state under the All Pro­gressives Grand Alliance (APGA). A friend of mine called me and said I am too decent, ethical and moral to be involved in politics, but I told him that politics is at the heart of transformation.

“I’m contesting because there is the need to rescue the ‘rescue mis­sion’ which has turned out to be a ‘destruction mission’. I’ll galvanise the best experts in fields and other unbelievable human capital being wasted in the state,” he said.
He blamed the abysmal perfor­mance of the state to wrong polit­ical choices, as well as the culture that made those choices, but add­ed that, “once you change the po­litical culture by bringing techno­crats, those with experience and integrity for that matter, the narra­tive will automatically change.”

“We’re going to sanitise leader­ship, take it away from the theatre. In the last seven years, governor Okorocha has promoted the con­cept of leadership I call leadership as theatre and criminality. It means that a leader is a jest master and chief comedian, the biggest actor Hollywood master.

“Governance is all about rolling your sleeves, sitting down, reading the reports, talking to constituents, finding problems and thinking about how to solve them.

“As the NERC chairman, people said I did extremely well, but it wasn’t by only divine sort of pow­ers. It was simple. I went through refresher course every morning in my office. I sat from 7 to 9 with an expert from Canada who pushed me through the basics.

“But in Imo, there is a rally ev­ery morning at the Hero’s Square by school children as if that’s what governance is all about. Imo is an apprentice workshop, scattered tools, digging up roads in rainy season. There is some level of in­sanity in the heart of misgover­nance in the state,” Amadi added.

Amadi compared himself with former Governor late Chief Sam Mbakwe who he said governed the state using the experience of a civil rights lawyer, defending abandoned property, the ex-NERC boss said he would reset the state as a human rights lawyer, development scholar and technocrat using his integrity, com­petence experience he garnered from his previous assignments.
“Imo presently has only 5.9bil­lion as IGR, as against 5.8billion in 2011. That means only 100 million was added. Jigawa had 1.5billion in 2011, but increased to 5.4billion in 2017, adding 4billion. Rochas has retarded by destroying rather than building means of livelihood.

“By destroying markets and means of house-hold income, he has succeeded in destroying means of IGR for the state. Before now, Imo was top in education, but the story is now different with oth­er states in the South East doing better than us.

“How can we have all these con­stellation of stars and untapped potentials and someone feels he can impose his family members and in-laws on us? We’re coming with the New Imo Movement to clean the state,” he said.