Imo State Commissioner for Information, Chief Declan Mbadiwe Emelumba, yesterday accused a former governor of the state for being behind Easter Monday’s attacks on some federal facilities in Owerri,Imo state capital.
Accordingly to him,”the former governor engaged thugs whom he had earlier granted amnesty to unleash violence in the state to prod the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency in Imo”.
Addressing a press conference in Owerri, Chief Emelumba averred that all that took place in the state last Monday had the imprimatur of the former governor.
According to him, the fact that the former governor sponsored some Northern youths who called for the declaration of a state of emergency in Imo barely hours after the attacks made him a culprit.
Chief Emelumba further alleged that the former governor wants to get back at Governor Hope Uzodinma for insisting on the implementation of the white paper that indicted him for looting the state and grabbing people’s lands.
“Recall that the man had gone to court to stop the commissions from sitting. When that failed, he approached Gov Uzodinma to disband the panels, and when that failed,he resorted to violence to repossess property ,Government had sealed. That is the motive for the attacks”,he insisted.
The commissioner said all that happened on Monday were orchestrated to portray Uzodinma as an incompetent Governor as a prelude to the declaration of a state of emergency in Imo by the Federal Government.
While brandishing a copy of a press conference by the Northern youths where they castigated Uzodinma but praised the former governor, Emelumba said it was not a rocket science for people to know the person behind the attacks.
He added that it was not a coincidence that the former governor has not condemned the attacks in Owerri on Monday ,insisting that he failed to do so because he knows something about the attacks .”How come the former governor is not condemning the attacks if not because it is his brain child”
He disclosed that government was also in possession of information on how a Special Adviser to the former governor procured the thugs that invaded Owerri that Monday morning.
He said he was sure that at the end of thorough investigation, the truth would come out that the desperation of the former governor to hold on to filched Imo property has driven him to unleash violence and destabilise the state.
