IPAD Tackles Uzodinma on Protest Ban

The recent comment credited to the Governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodinma, over ban on protest in the state on Monday attracted the attention of Imo Peoples' Action for Democracy (IPAD), which condemned the comment and mandated the governor to withdraw such comment.

In a statement issued by IPAD Coordinator, Marjorie Ezihe, and Secretary, Chibundu Uchegbu, tagged ‘Protest: A Fundamental Right’, described the governor's comment as "highly pungent and repugnant."

IPAD, therefore, responded thus: "Who wants to take us back to the old world we have outlived? Who wants to clip our wings of freedom? Who is afraid of our cherished nascent democracy? Also, why would someone who has handsomely benefitted from democratic institution not want features of the same democracy to thrive under him?"

The group said: "If there be anything at all to be intolerant of in Imo State, it should be the arbitrary defection  from one political party to another without justification as stipulated by law; it should be truant House of Assembly; it should be abuse and disregard for due process; it should be police checkpoints that have  metamorphosed into toll collection points; and it must certainly be high cost of governance with attendant hardship and weaponised poverty.”

It noted that the governor's statement "has unequivocally demonstrated that he  is either delusionary or unaware of what huge public trust governance is, or he wants to take the state back to the tyrannical dark days of  Chief Rochas Okorocha's era when ministries existed in  serial rather than in practice; House of Assembly became a mere ceremonial institution and rubber stamp; public offices amounted to touting, fawning, groveling, gross inefficiency;  contracts without documents, capitalism without markets and unplanned socialism."

According to IPAD, history is replete on how nations are built, economies advanced, crises averted through the instrument of protest. “Governor Uzodinma does not enjoy inherent power. He is a creation of the constitution, therefore must exercise powers within the bounds of the constitution that created him,” it said.

The group stated that Imo people need nothing short of social transformation,  profound institutions that depend on strong policy framework, values and established norms for rehabilitation, reconstruction and recovery