The title of this article is a question many in Imo State are now asking. My response is this: it depends! It would depend on the appreciation of the hope and confidence that Governor Hope Uzodimma is seeking to restore to the state, against the philosophy of leadership Iberiberism of his predecessor who, in the exercise of his leadership beliefs, elevated mindless land-grab and annexation of public and private spaces to an art of governance in a state where one of its best leaders, the late Sam Mbakwe, left office without estates traceable to him.
Imo State measures 5,530 kilometers square. It is ranked 34th in land size among states in Nigeria, ahead of Anambra and Lagos states. In November 2021, the state government returned 894 plots of land recovered from a previous administration in the state to their rightful owners. Now, imagine what would have remained of Imo State, if every governor, since its creation appropriated 894 plots of land to himself, family and cronies. During the handover ceremony, Uzodimma, represented by his deputy, Prof. Placid Njoku, said: “I realized that the only way to assuage the pains of the people was a complete restoration of the lands back to their rightful owners, and, today, we have gathered for the first phase of the restoration of lands forcefully taken away from their rightful owners.”
It is instructive that the Imo State government stated that the November 2021 event was the “first phase,” implying that there will be a second phase and, probably, a third and a fourth phase. And, to direct the people to exactly who annexed their lands, the governor said: “When the report (Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Lands and Other Related Matters) was submitted to me on 1st June, 2020, I immediately saw and felt the pains of Imolites whose lands were forcefully wrested away by the then administration. The government itself was not spared in this land-grabbing madness. Government lands and properties were sadly converted to personal use by the management of the Senator Rochas Okorocha administration, their families and friends.”
Further to this, the Uzodimma administration explained that “in Orlu, all government lands at the Government Station Layout and Eastern Palm University were brazenly taken over by the same people that the people of Imo State entrusted with the sacred duty of protecting and preserving public property.”
Note that the judicial commission was inherited by Gov. Uzodimma, who had also disclosed, publicly, that there was a lobby on him by principal actors and participants in the land looting spree to disband the commission. He refused.
Most people in Imo, including civil society groups, are happy that the governor was able to recover and restore those lands to their rightful owners. That action alone was a statement on the readiness of the Uzodimma administration to address injustices of the past and right wrongs against the people of the state. The implication is that the governor, like or hate him, is ready to step on toes, no matter how big. It also means that Uzodimma has already addressed himself to a no-sacred-cow show, which, incidentally, is a declaration of ‘war’ on those who looted lands, and other public resources in Imo State. Beyond lands, most people in the state are also hoping that Uzodimma shows similar courage in going after those who also looted Imo in various capacities. Here, Uzodimma is showing that Hopism may eventually trump Iberiberism.
However, the task that Uzodimma has set for himself is one that puts his head on the guillotine. Experience shows that no people, or persons, who are forced to give up such number of plots in one swoop, including university and prime estates, are likely to take such humiliating blows lying low. It is natural that they would want to fight back. How they do that is what no one can actually put a finger on. Land-grab is corruption too and, like it is said, corruption will always fight back. This raises some posers.
For instance, is it possible that the narrative on insecurity in Imo State is one mode through which corruption is fighting back? Is it possible that those who lost those plots of land are fighting back using different insecurity structures to distract and discredit? Is it possible that those who may forfeit more lands in the second, third or fourth phases of the land recovery and restoration exercise are using surrogates to cause more problems aimed to disturb, distract, confuse, discredit and stop Uzodimma and his team from accomplishing what many, even in the opposition party in the state, see as public good? Is it also possible that those who fear that Uzodimma’s anti-corruption drive may entail a disastrous end to their political lives would want to stop him, using insecurity as a tool to destabilize the state and make his re-election impossible?
More interesting is that Uzodimma, and those from who the 894 plots of land were recovered, are members of the APC. Is it therefore possible than an intra-party squabble, which has the next governorship election as focus, is extrapolated to become a security crisis for the entire state? Recall also that an erstwhile governor of the state had publicly boasted of holding a financial war chest that was larger than that available to the incumbent governor. Could it be that this war chest is now being deployed in a manner that threatens the peace and security of the state?
While the management of security is gradually becoming the leadership determining quotient in Nigeria’s political experiment, it becomes more imperative for anyone saddled with the responsibility of security and welfare of the people to go the extra mile, and think outside the box in doing the needful to secure the people. This extra mile can only be defined by the governor in question. In Katsina, for instance, Bello Masari is thinking of getting the state to help procure weapons to arm citizens against bandits. In Kaduna, Nasir El-Rufai would want “more boots on the ground” and a proclamation that empowers security outfits to “kill” bandits. Nyesom Wike has recently placed a ban on nightclubs in Rivers State as a security measure. Uzodimma, and, by extension, every state governor, would be within his powers to strategically deploy every legal official means to stamp out criminality, including decisively dealing with those found to sponsor criminality or using it as cover to fight back.
Iconic Singaporean leader, Lee Kwan Yew, agreed that it was better to execute one drug trafficker than to allow him destroy several families, and/or nations, with drugs. Imo people cannot afford to keep making excuses for merchants of violence. Such excuses allowed the Orsu cannibal den to fester. Imo people can also no longer afford to live in fear of people who, by picking up arms and/or by sponsoring armed criminality against the state have forfeited their right to freedom to live freely as reasonable members of the society. The state must be decisive on such persons when identified.
I guess it is for such persons, students of Iberiberism political school, that Nigeria’s first President, the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, expressed the following immortal words in one of his poems. He wrote: “Listen to the heartless oppressor; proud tyrant of the corrupt earth, monarch of a foremost top desk, spending public money with reckless abandon, confiscating people’s property without payment, depriving the poor of their sustenance, prepare willy-nilly for your Waterloo.”