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SPECIAL FEATURE

Hurricane Rochas

IV

Governor Rochas christened his cam paign slogan and battle c ry lmo Rescue Mission Agenda. Hi: opening regexes have justified that slogan.
W ithin his first week in office, Rochas tackled some festering sores that had offended the sensibi ides of me seople of Imo State. These were
the Local Government Councils whose election was a slap in the face of all decent democrats m e Imo State Council of Traditional Rulers
which had been irreverently bastardized.

r. attempt to assess Imo State

Governor Rochas Okorocha's

^ ^ K m a n ce in too days would

be like riding a tropical storm that grew
into a hurricane speed and intensity.
It has beer, breath-taking. Within just
boors after he took the oath of office and
oath of allegiance, Owelle Rochas Anayo
Okorocha, put paid to all doubts as to
whether he meant his campaign chorus
of free education if he won, by
announcing its immediate
implementation in all public schools in
the state, both primary and secondary.
The icing was put on the cake when he
ordered a refund to all who had already
paid their school fees for the term.
Imo people gasped in wonderment
and were yet to recover when another
friendly bomb was detonated. The
Owelle summoned distraught Imo
pensioners to a stakeholders' meeting
at the Dan Anyiam Stadium.
There and then they were issued with
cheques clearing a huge junk of their
pension entitlements that were in
arrears for 12 years!
Unbelievable! Incredible! Fantastic!
Even the recipients were stupefied and
dizzy with bewilderment.
But for the fact that a majority of the
senior citizens emerging from the
stadium that day with their cheques,
were weak and broken with age and were
benumbed by past deceitful invitations
for one pre-payment parade or the other
by the previous governments the
grounds of Wethedral Road would have
protested over the pounding of the
dancing feet of the pensioners. But they
did not dance. There was no visible
excitement. Perhaps they didn't even
believe in the genuineness of the
cheques!
That has been the lowdom of the loss
of faith in past governments due to
corruption and shameless greed.