By CHIDI NKWOPARA

OWERRI—As Nigeria rolled out drums to celebrate its independence, yesterday, residents of Imo State expressed concern over the increasing level of insecurity in the country.

For the Governor of Imo State, Chief Rochas Okorocha, Nigeria will remain an indivisible entity, despite the nagging problems facing it today.

Okorocha, who stated this in his 2013 Independence Day message to the people, however, expressed serious worry over cases of insecurity facing the country today.

While saying that since the country faced and survived a 30-month-old fratricidal war, it will remain one and indivisible entity.

In his own message, the National Publicity Secretary of Progressive People’s Alliance, PPA, Dr. Vitalis Orikeze Ajumbe, appealed to Nigerians to remain steadfast in prayer to God to give them a good leader that would transform the nation.

“We are 53 years old as a nation but the bane of our under-development has remained corruption. It has eaten so deep into our social fabric that Nigeria cannot move forward,” Ajumbe said.

He pleaded with the Federal Government to ensure that public power supply was improved, adding that “with an improved energy, we can drive our industries and employ more unemployed hands in the country.”

Other citizens called for the paving of roads, functional education, affordable health facilities, creation of an additional state in the South East geo-political zone and taking proper care of pensioners.

Elder Joseph Anokwu frowned on the manner pensioners were treated in the country, pointing out that the senior citizens served the nation meritoriously and should not be treated like outcasts.

For an Owerri youth leader, Mazi Damian Nze, “the South East is still marginalized in all ramifications.” He stressed that there was no reason why it should still boast of only five states when other zones have six and seven states.”