The major challenge facing our country as at today is the fact that some govered states are ruled by people who did not set out their agenda and goals before they got into offices. They only began to think of what to do with their position after getting into offices. When eventually they failed to perform, they shifted the blame to the federal government.

This is the submission of Ken Ojiri, a governorship aspirant under the flagship of People’s Democratic Party in Imo state. In an interactive session, K .O as he is fondly called says the federal government is simply a victim of blackmail by some governors after non performance. He speaks on a variety of issues affecting Imo state.

The Problem with Imo State

The major problem with Imo state is lack of employment which is due to lack of industries which in itself is lack of planning by government. While each administration tries its best within the scope of its capacity, lack of forensic examination of the actual need of Imo people and a master plan on the short and long term means of solving them has been a hamstrung.

Ken Ojiri

The only problem that is universal is hunger, otherwise, every area has its peculiar problem. What provides sucour for someone in Lagos may not be what will give someone in Imo state joy. It is therefore important to identify those things that will add value to the lives of the people of the state, things that will prolong the citizen’s life. What will return the cultural values of the people and the pride of the people of the state? When you identify all these, it becomes easy to connect with the people.

Imo state has suffered the highest amount of urban migration in all its ramifications. This has affected not only the aged who are left alone in the villages, but the younger generations most of whom are born and bred outside Igbo land. They grow up in foreign environment, foreign culture and language. The implication is that Imo culture and traditions are fast fading away while Igbo language has become foreign to these children.

Creative Governance

This is the reason everyone who aspires to govern any state in the country must set out his or her agenda, have a study of his state and its critical needs and come close enough to the people to connect with them. If you ask me, the biggest problem of my people in Imo state is lack of employment. Most Imo people are not happy in most cities where they reside, but unfortunately, they have no choice. It is difficult to imagine a state that has almost the highest number of graduates annually without a single industry in the state let alone, industrial park or estate.

Is it that Imo does not have enough land for industrial estates or that it cannot design an industrial estate, or that it is a taboo for industries to flourish in the state? There is no rocket science in it. Once you make the environment attractive for industrialists, they naturally come to invest. It is my desire to develop industrial estates in Imo, attract major industries that will attract ancillary industries.

The truth is that once you put certain things in place, most people who are welders, electricians, brick layers etc. who are working hard outside the state but leaving like ants will rather come back home and work. Graduates who leave from hands to mouth because what they earn is too meager to take care of their accommodation, high cost of city life and the hassles of the city will find sucour in coming closer home to work. Others who have aged parents and desolate compounds will be too glad to relocate back home. Most people who are three sharing a room in cities across the country have comfortable homes in their fathers’ compound. If given the opportunity, they would be happier working from home.

Again when industries come and businesses thrive in Imo, property values will naturally raise, tenement houses becomes an investment. Unfortunately, this is what our people are providing for other cities that have the foresight to develop their industrial capacities. In places like Lagos, Rivers. Ogun, Anambra etc., what they are reaping today is deliberate long term industrial plan which was sustained. Chief Sam Mbakwe of blessed memory started but successive military administrations could not sustain it. Unfortunately, no one has been able to study Mbakwe’s master plan for Imo state.

Let me tell, you, if I stay in office and follow Mbakwe’s master plan, Imo state will never be the same again. It is time to think of Imo state as an industrial state rather than a leisure state. I don’t think Imo people are that lazy to equate them with only leisure. It s ironical that a people whose hands power the industrial capacities of other states have only hotels and restaurants to show as their industry. Imo state must change. It  is long over due. It is time to reverse the trend of urban migration to rural migration and believe me, it is possible.

Federal Government as Victim

Much of what the federal government is suffering today has its root on non performing governors that hold sway in some states. A state governor that collects allocation and invests it on jamboree will turn round to blame the federal government for flooding in his state. He turns round to blame the federal government for high turn over of area boys turned criminals or graduates turned  kidnappers. When a governor uses his money to purchase votes, buys himself into office and spends the whole time in his office trying to recoup investments, you don’t really blame him.

The state radio stations are propaganda machines that turn the faces of the masses to the federal government and away from the state governors who owe them larger responsibilities Until the states become creative in their governance, until those who have vision and plan for their time in office take over the government at the states, the federal government will continue to bear the brunt of the ineptitude of the state governments.