BY EVERLYN ANYASADOR
Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma and his predecessor, Senator Rochas Okorocha, Friday, exchanged verbal punches over the Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University, Ogboko.
Uzodimma, on his arrival at the Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport, said the university is now a fully owned state university for the benefit of the people of the state.
He said his administration “rejected an attempt to convert the K.O Mbadiwe University built and furnished with the tax payer’s money, by an individual”
Uzodimma had on Wednesday received certificate of ownership of the university presented to him by the Executive Secretary of National University Commission, NUC, Prof Abubakar Adamu Rasheed.
Okorocha, in a statement signed by his media adviser, Sam Onwuemedo, accused Uzodimma, of “trying to score a cheap political goal with bloated claims on the Eastern Palm University’
“For the sake of emphasis, the lmo State Governor, for reasons best known to him, has made the Eastern Palm University part of his anti-Okorocha politics and had claimed to have changed the Eastern Palm University to Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University” Part of the statement read
“This is absurd. Indeed, amusing, because you do not build something on nothing.
“Cases with the Eastern Palm University as the subject matter, have been going on in various courts of the land, and these are courts of competent jurisdiction because of government’s actions and inactions on the University.”
He said Uzodinma has chosen to play lingering and worrisome politics with the university and the reason he would not wait for the courts to determine cases concerning the institution.
Okorocha further said patriotic lmo citizens and Nigerians of goodwill would ask and expect an answer as to whether Uzodinma built another university at Ogboko, for which he had gone to the NUC office to secure recognition and operational licence.
“Honestly, this does not give a good impression about the government. The whole development leaves much to be desired,” he said.
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