The governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodinma has been described as weapon of mass destruction for the people of Imo State and the entire Southern Region following his “recent stand on national issues” which does “not support the interest of his own people”, according to Barr Williams Ukonu, a Nigerian human right lawyer.
BASIC FACTS
Barr. Ukonu made this remark while speaking with a Clariform correspondent via telephone chart on Wednesday. He said that the governor was never truly elected by his people but have a chance to prove the doomsayers wrong, a chance he has failed and continued to fail to take.
“How Hope Uzodinma come to occupy the Owerri Douglas House is not news to you people in the press. What he has is a stolen mandate. He was never elected by his own people, not even did he win in his own senatorial district, but they got him into office and forced him on all of us.
“Any reasonable person with good conscience would have seized the moment to prove the doomsayers wrong by being on the side of the people whom he has become their governor by chance. Whether by hood or crook, he is the governor today but how market?
“Today he has become a pariah and a weapon of mass destruction for the Imo people and the South. Only his northern master has the trigger switch and they are using effectively to entrench their own interests in the south against the will of our people.
“He has never taking a position that suits or protects the Imo people. Just imagine his recent stand on national issues. What matters to him the most is what the North wants and not the people of Imo State or the South generally. He will never support the interest of his own people, but cares not to hurt his paymasters who put him in power against the will of the people” said Barr Ukonu.
BACKGROUND
Barr. Ukonu`s comments came after Governor Uzodinma`s remarks on Wednesday over the anti-open grazing stand of the Southern Governor`s Forum. The governor in his address to the media after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari seemed to cast doubt over his support to the effort of the Southern governors to put a stop to the open gracing by the Fulani herders which have caused untold hardship across the country.
The SGF took a joint position against this practice on the 5th of August, 2021, requiring the passing of a law banning open gracing in all the Southern states on a before the 1st of September 2021. 2021.
The meeting was hosted by Sanwo Olu, the Lagos State governor. Most states that did not have this law already in place before the joint resolution was reached, have since either enacted it or working towards enacting the law before the September 1st deadline.
TAKEAWAY
Contrary to this joint resolution, Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State is now officially on record as the only governor, who seem to be departing from this understanding jointly reached by the 17 southern governors, including him.
In his statement on Wednesday after meeting with President Buhari in Abuja, he appears to suggest his lack of willpower to follow true with the anti-open gracing law enactment.
He suggested that rather than enact an anti-grazing law, his preference is to continue to appeal to the Fulani herders in the state not to foment further troubles in the state in the course of open grazing of their cattle.
However, Clariform reporters have gathered that this is one approach that has not proven to work in any state across the nation. The governor said that his government will continue to collaborate and manage relationship between the Fulani herders and the farmers whom the herders have continually raped, killed and maimed in their farms.
NOTABLE QUOTE
“I don’t have any law in Imo State for anti-grazing. But what we have done is that we are regulating grazing activities in Imo State under a partnership between our farmers and herders. They have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in my office and agreed to work together. And both parties are going about their businesses without interfering or causing any grievance or anger to each other.” said the Imo State governor.
The 17th southern governor have set the 1st of September 2021 as the target deadline for all member states to enact the anti-open grazing law to ban open grazing by all the herders their respective states.
