By Olusegun Adeniyi
On 24th March 2012, Chief Rochas
Okorocha, then less than a year in office as Imo State Governor, was in Kosovo
where he signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for an independent power
plant, an agro processing plant and several other industries that he promised
would be established in his state. There were neither feasibility studies nor
any clear ideas as to where the money to finance these projects would come from
but those sorts of things never really worry the ebullient governor.
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| *Gov Rochas Okorocha |
A few weeks before the trip to the
Balkan Peninsular, Okorocha had declared a four-day holiday for workers in Imo State
so they could partake in the take-off of the Community Council Government (CCG)
he instituted. And for this extra-constitutional fourth-tier of government, the
governor approved the disbursement of N5 million to each of the communities in
the 27 local councils from a subvention of N3 billion that was not captured in
the 2012 Imo State Appropriation Bill.. He also declared free education at all
levels in the state after announcing that he would be paying salaries to all
the primary school pupils (yes, pupils, not teachers alone). And to be sure,
Okorocha actually went to some primary schools where the pupils were lined up
for him to hand them N100 each!
