The Founder of Ken Ojiri Foundation, Mr. Kenneth Ikechukwu Ojiri has condemned what he described as oppression of indigenes and residents of Imo State by the state governor, Rochas Okorocha.
In a statement made available to journalists in Owerri, weekend, Ojiri wondered why a governor should unleash hell against the people he is meant to protect.
The former governorship candidate condemned the demolition of Ekeukwu Market, Owerri, by the state government without providing any alternative which resulted in the death of citizens of the state, with many sustaining varying degrees of injury.
Acknowledging re-planning of a city as something worth doing, Ojiri said it was most callous to forcefully eject traders out of the market without any measures to cushion the effects of such policy at a time the people are battling to survive the severe economic hardship of the moment.
He equally criticized the planned demolition of the New Market and the sudden ban on the operation of tricycles (keke) within the major roads/streets of Owerri and the release of few cabs as replacement for the tricycles, maintaining that such harsh policies would subject people to penury and could as well increase crime rate in the state.
The financial expert and technocrat frowned that the government has continued to destroy people’s property duly constructed, without any compensation, in the guise of renewing the cities in the state.
He noted that Okorocha has not left anyone in doubt that his main mission as Imo State Governor was to impoverish Ndi Imo by introducing various anti-people and retrogressive policies, saying his policies and programmes have inflicted unmitigated pains, hardship and frustration on the people.
He views Okorocha’s recent actions and plans as strategies seemingly, to further create and spread poverty for a predetermined selfish end and wondered how a Chief Executive of a state who prides himself in the self delusion of being the people’s governor could turn against the same people he professes to love.
He therefore urged the governor to stop torturing the citizens of the state, adding that government’s programmes should be for the welfare of the people and not to oppress them.
Ojiri however encouraged the people of Imo State not to despair, but remain resolute in this hard time, maintaining that the people will surely triumph, while equally consoling the families of those that lost their loved ones at the Ekeukwu Owerri incident.