Imo 2019: Okey Eze and the Real Issues –Collins Opuruozor

Recently, the Economic Confidential, which is a reliable research and economic intelligence magazine, published its Annual States Viability Index (ASVI) for 2017.

The report, without mincing words, declared Imo State insolvent. To appreciate the meaning of such declaration, at least semantically, let us substitute the word ‘insolvent’ for its synonyms, to wit: ‘liquidated’, ‘ruined’ and ‘collapsed’!

This verdict is premised on the ratio of Imo’s internally generated revenues (IGR) to her allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). In 2017, the state’s receipts from FAAC stood at N85 billion as against her woeful IGR of N6.8 billion, showing a ratio of 8.1 percent of IGR to FAAC allocations.

Another indicator which is more analytically relevant and which reveals more vividly the sorry economic situation of the entity called Imo is the ratio of total expenditure to IGR. This wasn’t captured by the Economic Confidential but it is pertinent we point it out. Every month, Imo generates internally an average of N450 million but spends an average of N4.6 billion. The difference shows you the extent of our bankruptcy, of our vulnerability, of our unviability and of our ruination.

When the above reality is juxtaposed with the policy priorities of the incumbent administration in the state, it becomes palpable that the disdain of the government for the people is unprecedented. Beyond its endemic visionlessness, which of course accounts for its inability to generate what it spends, what else, save raw cruelty, explains the fact that this administration squanders N2.5 billion monthly in servicing its bureaucracy in a state where economic recession has lowered the real incomes of workers – and even their nominal incomes slashed by forty percent – a state where pensions are denied and basic amenities completely absent? Hosting heads of states, building statues, junketing around the world and throwing parties have replaced the overriding necessity for government to address basic needs.

Today, Imo occupies the top positions in all indices of social misery. The most worrisome part of this narrative is that the government keeps obtaining more loans to finance waste. Imo’s debt stock is already public knowledge, which is not anything below N120 billion.

In a lecture given to the Imo Network Group (ING) in March 2017, Sir Okey Ezeh, an investment expert and the SDP governorship candidate, observed that, “A cursory analysis of the financial state of the entity known as Imo State will reveal that its resources have not been managed in an optimal and prudent fashion. The state is reeling from excessively bloated and avoidable overhead costs just as core resources are frittered away on a multiplicity of white elephant projects that have zero capacity to stimulate growth in the local economy or even engender gainful employment for its teeming citizens.

“In all of these landmark borrowings, no effort was made to redraw the industrial landscape of the state by re-jigging investments in the hugely vital agro-industrial sector where the state has major comparative advantage with the neglected Adapalm, Imo Rubber Estates and Avutu Poultry facilities. Instead, large scale asset stripping was systematically carried out under the guise of concession schemes that threw up “investors” and concessionaires of questionable pedigree. Adapalm went for N3.5bn to a certain Roche, Concorde Hotel and Oguta Lake Motel were flung to ABM Global for 20 years for undisclosed consideration; 18 General Hospitals were sold to Lantech Solutions while the Imo Transport Corporation was leased to Global Ginikana for a reported N250m even as the Avutu Poultry, Nsu Tiles Company, Umuna Bricks Factory, Egbema Power Plant, Inyishi Aluminium Extrusion Plant, Standard Shoe Factory and Imo Rubber Estates among other low-hanging investment fruits were left comatose,” Ezeh regretted.

The greatest urgency now for us as a people is to elect a leadership that will funnel resources away from non-regenerative, cosmetic schemes to agro-based industrialization drive using the industrial cluster model that will be spread across the three zones of the state, a leadership that will facilitate the up-skilling and building of human capacity and improvement of all aspects of financing and access to finance by SMEs through deliberative actions and interventions, a leadership that will unleash the energy of the entrepreneurial spirit of Imo people who are known to be great innovators.

We desperately need a leader that will run a transparent and accountable, value-for-money administration with zero tolerance for corruption, ineptitude and cronyism. This alone will free up huge resources that will be applied to harnessing our virtually limitless agricultural potentials. We need a leader who is driven by a determination to overhaul the antiquated Imo educational architecture and train Imo children to be skilled and competitive both nationally and globally through the adoption of the use of modern pedagogical methods.

Imo, in the final analysis, needs a leader who has the requisite integrity, prudence, competence and courage to tackle the ongoing financial recklessness in the state. Okey Ezeh has these attributes. He has pledged that, “Over-bloated overheads can be curtailed in 30 days. Flying private jets, 1st class tickets, luxury guesthouses, lengthy convoys, too many idle appointees and inflated projects can be shoved aside in days and our books balanced in 90 days. When we stop the bleeding taking place through over-bloated overheads and unverified personnel costs, we go after enhanced revenues. I can tell you without any equivocation that proper accounting of Imo’s true IGR figures will yield nothing less than N1.2bn monthly.”

We have a great opportunity to make Imo work again. Imo rebirth is now!

#OkeyIsOkay