If the information reaching us is anything to believe, then the months of unpaid salaries owed to the civil servants in the state has torn apart the first family in Imo State.
This is because the governor, His Excellency Owelle Rochas Anayo Ethelbert Okorocha, OON, has beaten up his wife for urging him to pay civil servants who were still being owed several months of salary arrears even after the federal government’s bail out fund had been released.
According to reports, the incident was said to have followed the angry protest by the medical students of the Imo State University Hospital, Orlu. According to the source, trouble started when the Imo First Lady, Nneoma Nkechi Okorocha queried her husband over his reason for punishing the people of the state in the manner he was doing and that she had lost words to continue to explain to the people that her husband was in the right path.
According to reliable sources, Mrs. Okorocha was said to have angrily
told the governor that because of his actions, the first family’s name
no longer worth anything in the eyes of the people of the state over
cries across the state of bad governance foisted on them by him.
As if sent by some opponents of the governor, Mrs. Okorocha was said
to have reminded her husband that the hospitals, courts, house of
assembly and many parastatals were under lock and key because of up to
seven months arrears of salaries owed them, and questioned the
rationale behind the governor making the state a ghost state by not
funding projects and institutions such as IMSUTH, not paying salaries
and stifling the economy of the state.
This was said to have infuriated the governor and in a fit of anger,
he started beating her mercilessly, but just in time for his security
aides to have come to her rescue.
The governor was said to have flown off the handle and scolded his
wife to stop listening to gossips from his opponents who only wished
him bed, but the woman was said to have insisted and continued to
express worry and disappointment that she no longer received the same
cheer she used to receive during their first term in office.
It would be recalled that on Thursday last week, 15th-10, 2015, Imo
State University Medicine and Surgery students under the aegis of Imo
State University Medical Students, stormed the government house in
Owerri in a protest against the current status of the IMSU Teaching
Hospital, Orlu.
They were angry that because of the neglect of the institution by the
governor, medical students who were supposed to have graduated four
years ago were still in school after 10 years of gaining admission as
medical students.
They were clad in their lab coats and carried various placards with various inscriptions including such as “10 years in school and still counting”, “Owelle you promised to dualize road leading to IMSUTH in September, 2014. SaveIMSU”, “No patients! No learning!! No exams!!! No hope!!! #SaveIMSUTH”, among others.
The students including older and younger ones matched in a peaceful protest to the government house area, Okigwe road roundabout and refused to leave till their demands were addressed by the state governor, His Excellency Anayo Rochas Okorocha.
They listed among other things that IMSUTH Hospital had been shut down as a result of doctors’ strike for four months and still counting and that examinations were cancelled and deferred indefinitely and that years after establishing the college, the pathology laboratory and auditorium had not been completed..
They also complained of under-staffing of various departments and the hospital was on the verge of Losing MDCN accreditation as well as no motorable raods and insecurity.
However, on the orders of the governor, the protesting students were reportedly teargassed and chased by security officials of the state which led to some getting injured and an overall fracas on the centre of the Owerri city.
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