Former Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha has described as untrue Governor Hope Uzodinma’s accusation that aggrieved politicians were responsible for the attack on security facilities in Imo saying that no sane politician will ask youths to shoot at Police headquarters.
According to him, saying politicians are involved in the attacks is trying to politicize the whole thing.
Uzodinma had on Channels TV on Wednesday said he had facts that aggrieved politicians were responsible for attack of security facilities in Imo saying their plan was to distabilize his government and the APC.
But Okorocha on Thursday, in a statement issued by his media office in Owerri, claimed that the banditry, killings and attacks were a products of poverty and injustice.
The former Governor, according to the statement spoke in Jos, Plateau State, when he payed a condolence visit to the family of late Mrs. Felicia Biskanga.
He decried the security situation in Imo State, the security situation in Nigeria as a whole, and the security situation in the society, saying it was not palatable, adding that the nation was passing through a very difficult moment in her history.
According to him, the recent attack on the Police headquarters and the Correctional centre in Imo State, the unending herdsmen crises, the banditry, the unending Boko Haram, kidnapping, among others were all products of poverty and injustice.
He said time had come for political leaders to tell themselves the truth and address this ugly situation and help men and women of the Armed Forces and the Police who were currently fighting the symptoms and not the disease of poverty and injustice.
Okorocha said while he called for peace and understanding, leaders had a duty to correct these ugly issues of injustices and poverty which is ravaging the country.
He said during my time as a governor, Imo State was very peaceful and that this security issues, agitations were on.
He said even IPOB seemed to have been very strong during his own time, and that they were ready to engage government but “we applied wisdom in the sense that we talked with the traditional rulers, the youth leaders and made them to see reasons.
“That is the way to go, engaging them with issues but this idea of bringing in Airforce, army as a first measure, whoever is saying politicians are involved is trying to politicize the whole thing.
‘I don’t think that any sane politician will go and ask youths to shoot at the Police headquarters and all that,” Okorocha said.
He added that his message to Uzodinma was that he should face the challenge of leadership and consultation as this time was very important because “if the governor consulted me and said how did you handle IPOB during your time that there was peace in Imo State, how did you handle the issue of kidnapping, how did you handle the issue of agitators? I would have told him.
“During my time, we collected more than a 100 AK-47 rifles from the youths who came for exchange willingly just by talking to them. We must always understand that these children are our children.”
“We are overloading the military and the police in trying to help the situation when we have not tackled the issues of injustices in this country and the issues of poverty.
“As long as these continue in the form and shape it is going on, and as long as young men wake up in the morning and there is no job and poverty ravaging the system, there is little or nothing the armed forces can do because it is a growing thing,” he stated.
