The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Imo State has told Governor Hope Uzodimma to drop his ambition for a second term in office because the state won’t survive his second coming given the very ugly and unwholesome state of affairs since he was foisted on the state as governor.
The party maintained that a second term for Governor Uzodimma and his All Progressives Congress, APC, will reinforce failure and extend the regime of massive treasury looting and unceasing outrageous bloodletting in Imo.
Imo PDP, in a statement issued at the weekend in Owerri and made available to newsmen, accused the administration of Senator Uzodimma of squandering over ₦420billion in the last three years out of the over ₦600billion that accrued to the state under his watch.
In the document signed by Collins Opuruzor, State Publicity Secretary of PDP, the party noted that the jubilation that engulfed the State upon the recent release of the 2023 Imo Governorship Election Timetable by INEC was a clear testimony that the people are completely fed up with the mass misery in the land and have strongly resolved to send the failed APC regime packing.
His words, “What must be understood is that Imo, which has been so badly governed for nearly three years by the widely-rejected regime of Senator Uzodinma, is now in dire straits. The State will never survive another term of misrule.
“Imo PDP finds it totally shameful and unacceptable that among the 36 States in the country, our State is presently at the lowest rung of the ladder as far as viability index is concerned.
“Our Party is also greatly pained that in the 2022 “State of States Report” recently published by a reputable civic organization, BudgIT, Imo has been classified as the worst State in the Southeast in terms of fiscal performance, and it is also among the ten worst States in Nigeria. This was the same Imo that won laurels in fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability in 2019 when our Party was in power.
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“We have it on BudgIT’s authority that almost seventy percent of the over N600 billion that has accrued to Imo State under Senator Uzodinma has gone into recurrent expenditure. This is to the tune of well over N420 billion. Particularly, the government’s spending priorities show that this staggering sum has only gone into maintaining lengthy convoys, flying private jets, drinking champagnes, financing propaganda machinery, sustaining idle appointees, and frittering away through a multiplicity of other irresponsible ways.
“What is more troubling is that BudgIT explicitly says the regime of Senator Uzodinma has raised the debt profile of Imo State by 121% just in twelve months, thereby increasing Imo’s indebtedness to N210 billion. Yet, no single landmark project is done to justify that such loans have been taken.
“Even when the corrupt regime has hijacked and pocketed a total of N127billion that came to the local governments from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC), there has not been a single trip of construction sand dropped in any local government area of the State.”
The party regretted that instead of tackling headlong the numerous development challenges facing the state, Senator Uzodinma has dispatched a team of his praise singers, led by a factional State Chairman of the APC, to the various local government areas to mock the people by telling them that, “Our Governor sent us. We came to hear your challenges and problems for onward presentation to the government in Owerri for solution.”
Opuruzor added that the action of the delegation is “an undisputable evidence that for three years, Senator Uzodinma neither understands anything about the challenges facing the various areas of the State nor has he done anything to address the challenges.”
The party which is the leading opposition party in the state therefore urges Imo people to remain calm, patient and resolute, knowing that time for the exit of the administration which has “wrought untold agonies on them” is near.
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