The Imo State government, yesterday read riot act to indigenes of Owerri Municipal council opposed to the proposed relocation of the Owerri main market popularly known as Eke-Ukwu Owere, stressing that there is no going back on the exercise.
Governor Rochas Okorocha who stated this in a chart with journalists highlighted that the relocation which would soon be effected would entail total demolition of all structures in the market in line with his urban renewal and Imo my pride programme, even as he advised traders in the market to move their wares to the new site of the market at the out-sketch of the Owerri Capital City without further delay.
The governor, who similarly directed all mechanics in the city to relocate to the Avu Mechanic Village, said that henceforth all marooned vehicles not found at the mechanics village would be impounded and a penalty fee of N10,000 imposed on the owner.
Furthermore, he warned the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in the state still reluctant to embrace his novelty of three days for work and two days for farming for civil servants to have a change of heart, stressing that the measure was in the best interest of the workers and the state.
He regretted that most of the civil servants in the state are not computer literate and disclosed that 3,000 computer literate graduates who would be trained as experts from South Africa would be recruited into the state civil service to stimulate the civil service.
Okorocha who decried insinuation trailing his recent overseas trip and the rumours of death peddled against him by some faceless individuals said that he was neither slapped by an evil spirit nor suffered any strange illness abroad, saying that “I have a lot to accomplish for Imo people and it is God who, not only protects a man, but the vision in him.”
He accused the opposition in the state of master minding the rumours of death against him, describing the act as the height of enmity and opposition which he said both the late Dr NNamdi Azikiwe, Awolowo and Dr Michael Okpara never suffered.
“We must never surrender our state to deities because these are some of the things that have continued to hold us down. Some people do not want to hear anything positive in the government but only the negative ones but I am prepared to change this with my rescue mission programme”
