*Denies corruption claims
Former Imo State Governor Ikedi Ohakim has disclosed the reasons why he deposed to an affidavit on his term in office while shedding light on what he plans to do if he wins the state governorship election next year.
Ohakim recently deposed to a 35-paragraph affidavit before an Owerri High Court in which he among other things vehemently denied allegations of corrupt enrichment and diversion of state funds.
The former governor also challenged any Imo citizen to take him to court to disprove his claim of non-corrupt enrichment.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Times on Friday, Ohakim said, “I went to Owerri High Court to swear to an affidavit so that whatever I say to the people of Imo State henceforth, will be legally binding between us and that I can be held responsible for my words.
“I did that, knowing that no one has taken such step in Nigeria before. If you check, more than 99 per cent of politicians in the country just make promises merely to deceive the people and take their votes without making efforts to fulfill those promises.
“In the past, many prominent personalities in this country have made promises to do only one term as presidents and on grounds of which they were handed over party nominations but at the end of their tenure, they reneged and went ahead to re-contest.
“Look at the case of the current Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, who signed an agreement to do one term even in the presence of some church leaders as witnesses, yet he failed to keep to the terms of the agreement and now even wants to do a third term through a crony.
“If you recall, somebody wrote a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) alleging that I diverted N9billion
meant for the dredging of Nworie River, which was actually an NNDC project and therefore had nothing to do with me as Imo State governor.
“When the late President Umaru Yar’Adua heard of the petition, he called me and said your people must be very wicked for linking you with this matter. Yar’Adua was very angry with our people for that.
“The allegations against me were baseless, frivolous and unsubstantiated with most of them bandied by Rochas and his cohorts,
including the lies that I slapped a reverend father which never happened.
That is why I went to court and swore to the affidavit so that if anybody can prove that I took Imo state’s money, I should go in for that,” Ohakim said.
According to him, there was no promise he made during his campaigns for the 2007 governorship election that he did not fulfill, adding that he left N26 billion in the state’s treasury before leaving office.
In the 35-parapgraph affidavit titled: “My covenant with Ndi Imo,”
Ohakim pledged to serve for one term in 2019 and promised to redress the wasteful, treacherous, deceitful, autocratic and totalitarian regime in state since he left power.
He said that his current mission, include addressing the urgent issues of economic revival, loot recovery, reconciliation and re erecting all good governance structures allegedly destroyed by Governor Rochas Okorocha.
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