N4b FG Grant: PDP hits Uzodinma hard, demands account of N3b

The People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in Imo state has accused Governor Hope Uzodinma of deliberately peddling falsehoods and trying to score cheap political points with grant released by Federal Government to Imo youths.

In a reaction at the weekend, the leading opposition party in the state through its Director-General of News Media, Collins Opurozor, clarified that the Federal Government has released N4 billion to Imo youths as post-Covid-19 stimulus. According to him. “It is supposed to be N500, 000 per applicant. But now Uzodinma has reduced it to N250, and the figure of 15,000 applicants they are parading is a hoax. Even after all the dubious names added by government appointees to the data base, only 4,825 names are found there. Let them publish the authentic data base to challenge what I have said. What will happen to the rest of the money? Almost N3 billion has gone unaccounted for given this reality!

“They are busy publicizing that they are empowering 15, 000 people just to cover a big racket. Why has it become impossible for Hope Uzodinma to tell Imo people the truth? Why would everything be politicized in Imo simply because Uzodinma wishes to portray himself as having been accepted by Imo people? Does he think Imo people are daft?”

He also added that, “To gain some political capital from the whole thing, Uzodinma and his band of propagandists have begun to spew their usual falsehood, that they are the ones empowering Imo youths. I don’t think they understand what empowerment is all about. We are in a state where government has no programs, policies, no plans. If they had any plans to empower the youths, the first thing would have been to first train the applicants in various skills, so that whatever money they get will go into the operationalization of the skills! But nothing was done.

“Rather, they hired people to flood the entire city and stage a solidarity rally for Uzodinma at Dan Anyiam Stadium. They filmed the crowd just to deceive the world that the unelected ruler is popular among Imo people even when the truth is that his legitimacy crisis gets worse with each passing day, and even for a purported youth affair, majority of the people in attendance were very old members of Uzodinma’s faction of the APC and party thugs.

“Recall that Imo State has not officially lifted the Covid-19 regulations. Why would the same Uzodinma who imposed the regulations be gathering thousands of people at a spot just for clout-chasing? What is the essence of the planned rally for Uzodinma over Federal Government grant? Since the money will not be handed out to the applicants in cash and since the people they are hiring are fake, and given the rate of insecurity in the Imo, why endanger the lives of the people just for vainglory?

“The reality is that the regime of Uzodinma has broken down beyond repair, and it is headed to its terminus. It is fast downing and desperately trying to catch a straw. It has nothing else to think out, nothing else to say, nothing else to do.”

By Matthew Osaro