Ambassador Uju Jovita Onwudiwe is an All Progressives Congress(APC) lawmaker representing Njaba State constituency in the Imo State House of Assembly. In this interview with CHIDIEBERE IWUOHA, she assesses the 2nd term of Imo state Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha
Assessing Okorocha’s second term in office:
Governor Okorocha has done well in the last two years. Through his all -inclusive governance, he has been able to create political awareness in the polity. He has taken the indigent and downtrodden like his own. He is humble and cares for the masses. He believes in giving people dividends of democracy and believes that the state belongs to everybody. He has introduced free education which has even begun at the kindergarten level in my constituency. Through the free education, he has created an enabling environment for people to sit for NECO, WAEC and JAMB examinations and come out in flying colours. And you can see that Imo has done well in these exams.
He has through the free education policy reduced death rate of Imolites, because parents don’t pay school fees for their wards’ education again. He has committed his resources through security votes. He has used the money to support security in the state. People are now trooping into the state because of good security arrangement. He has transformed Owerri, the State capital by linking New Owerri to Old Owerri with many inland roads. Imo now has 27 hospitals in the 27 Local Government Areas of the state. When he started the construction, people thought it was not going to be possible.
But today he has handed over some of them to military formations like Army, Navy, Air Force etc for proper management. The key positions in the state are distributed to different people without discrimination. He constructed 305 school blocks in the 305 INEC wards in the state, all upstairs. The issue of class between the rich and the poor is no longer present in the state as he does not build anything for the rich or the poor but for everybody.
And he does not discriminate against zones in distributing projects.
Before Okorocha became governor he was already known. He volunteered himself to help people and gave free education to people.
Which of Okorocha’s projects affected the people most?
No doubt, it is the Free Education programme. No matter the money given to you, you cannot quantify it with Free Education. The programme is like an empowerment given to people to stay on their own in future. Money cannot get it for you.
On the insinuation that the House assembly leadership does not have access or good rapport with the governor which makes it difficult for the governor to release funds to them, and which in turn, has allegedly, made members to be stingy with money:
It is not true that our leadership does not have access to the Governor. We walk straight to him without protocol. Our honourable Speaker can see him at any time. We have 100% cordial relationship with the governor. What we do now is that we use resources to make things happen without squandering people’s resources. We use the resources to do one project or the other and avoid wasteful spending. That is the change we are talking about. The governor develops the communities, local government areas and wards with the available resources.
Some of my achievements in the last two years:
I secured admission for over 60 candidates into Imo State University, Federal University of Technology Owerri(FUTO),Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Imo Polytechnic Umuagwo, and School of Health Technology Orlu without payment. I sponsored twenty candidates to train at Nneoma Nkechi Okorocha Skills Acquisition Centre at Orlu and Njaba. At my 2016 Birthday celebration, I embarked on the empowerment of Njaba constituents. I distributed brand new motorcycles to 13 youths selected from each of the wards in the constituency. I also provided funds to 70 women to improve their petty trading. Similarly, during the 2017 episode, I provided seed funds for 100 people and provided clothing and food materials for over 300 indigent people selected from the constituency.
Attraction of government presence:
I have also attracted government presence like in the intervention of abandoned construction work at Njaba bridge; Sought government approval to upgrade the Eke Okwudor market to a modern market; Stopped fraudulent sales and allocation of stalls there and made plans for the establishment of Okwudor Holiday Resort which has reached advanced stage.
Free Medicare:
I had organized a week long free, qualitative medicare to cover a range of health situations, including malaria, typhoid, blood sugar, blood pressure, arthritis etc. Diagnosis and dispensary of drugs were done free to all who came to assess medicare. People were happy after the exercise and asked for more.
Agricultural development:
I have brought experts from CBN assisted National Agricultural programme to inspect and assess the Okwudor soil. It is heartwarming to state that preliminary findings have shown that Okwudor soil can grow rice, high yielding cashew, cassava, cucumber and other crops. They have promised to train our people, provide funds, provide improved seedlings and ensure mop-up during harvest. To this end, plans are underway to secure grants mapped out by the federal government to benefit the people and to help them venture into commercial farming. I have also made it possible for 36 cooperative societies to be registered and all-expenses paid by me.
This was done to remove the stress of running around for registration in order to conform to the minimum enrolment strength per cooperative group. I secured 20 anchor-borrowers’ forms each which amounts to a minimum of 720 applications from Njaba for the interest free loan. I graded and sand filled 63 killometre of roads across Njaba constituency.1,000 Njaba constituents benefitted from the provision of seedlings and farm inputs.