Outgoing Imo Governor, Rochas Okorocha, has promised to make transition to the next administration in the state smooth and peaceful.
He also said that he has been the most ‘misunderstood and most controversial governor’ the state has ever produced in the annals of her history because of his style of governance.
He said that his passion and vision to re-position the state for greatness made him to ‘bend rules and regulations’ in governance.
The governor, who stated this at the inauguration of the new justice Chukwudifu Akunne Oputa High Court Complex at New Owerri on Wednesday, said if he had adhered to the usual style of governance, he would not have succeeded.
He said, “I came in through the window of the masses and not through the doors of the elite and I am crazy in my vision and passion for a greater Imo State and nothing has affected my (medulla) oblongata.”
For resisting and restraining some indigenes of the state to continue business as usual in government, the governor said that he had been derided, scorned and maligned as Okoro Hausa and Aboki.
Enumerating his achievements in the past eight years, the governor said, “Let my work speak for me after leaving office and I am not in the business of wasting the taxpayer money to commission projects because I believe that such fund should be channeled to other productive ventures.”
He further boasted that he had set a standard which any incoming governor would not beat.
“My crazy system of governance is working and no governor coming after me will ever think of building hospitals in Imo for the next 50 years or to build more varsities,” he said.
He extolled the late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa as one of the nation’s greatest patriots who distinguished himself in character; and assured citizens that the transition process would be smooth and peaceful in the state.
He also promised to clear all arrears being owed judges in the state before leaving office.
In his comments, the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Paschal Nnadi, said the inauguration of the court complex would go a long way to reduce the current situation of insufficient court facilities.
“The embarrassment which lack of adequate court halls would have caused us in Imo State was recently averted by the assignment of six of our judges to election tribunal duty outside Imo State, which freed their court halls for use by the five election petition tTribunals empanelled for Imo State and now on ground and sitting in Imo State,” he added.
Adding his voice, the Acting Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Tanko Muhammad, who inaugurated the project through Hon. Justice Amina Augie, commended Okorocha for providing the structure which, he said, would ease the operations of the judiciary in the state.
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