Imo state governor, Emeka Ihedioha, on Monday said he inherited a dysfunctional government where every department of the state was in ruins.
He said however that within six months, he has restored sanity in governance and has eased the way government is run.
Speaking at a parley with newsmen in his Owerri home, Ihedioha said every tier of government was in disarray, lamenting that for seven years, the civil service was utterly neglected just as the state secretariat was without light for the whole years of the last administration.
He said: “When I came in, the style of governance deviated from every norm, and Imo was the worst run state of the federation. There was institutional and infrastructural disorder and decay. No state had the number of garnishee orders like Imo; land cases against Imo government were numerous. The state was sufficiently distracted that we have to spend money hiring lawyers.
“It took me two weeks before I got where to operate from because the Government House was nothing near its name; the judiciary was in bad shape with the judges being owed close to 30 months salary; promotions and appointments in the civil service were arbitrarily done with the result that the sector collapsed.
“The House of Assembly, which is supposed to be a place of dignity for the the state lawmakers is currently debased and in ruins and the lawmakers had no houses to stay.
“We are planning to pull the building down but if we do, it would be misrepresented; so I think we have to rebuild it despite the lean resources at our disposal.
“Go and take a look for yourself, the infrastructure there has decayed. If the lawmakers are your family members you cannot allow them to stay there; so we are thinking of relocating them to another site so that we can rebuild the place.”
He lamented at the discomfort of the offices of the lawmaker, describing it as a shame for them to operate in.
Ihedioha said that the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) has advised him to evacuate the state lawmakers away to a temporary site to avoid disaster.
The governor however has good news for the people as he said that Imo is now on the right footing.
“What I started out first was finding men and women of competence to man various sectors of our economy; we started by fixing our roads. So far, we have awarded 25 road contracts and all the contractors have mobilized to site.
“Today, our state is no longer a laughing stock. Imo now know that they have a governor who talk and work. We have and are putting round peg in round holes, while our civil service is now performing well,” he added.
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