The Imo State Government said it has uncovered fresh plot by politicians to sponsor further destabilization of the State.
The Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Chief Declan Emelumba raised the alarm on Tuesday when he addressed newsmen at the Government House Owerri.
According to Emelumba, “a former Governor of the State” and those he referred to as “other disgruntled politicians have voted a hefty N5b with which to trigger another round of security crisis in the state.”
“Unbelieveably, the masterminds of the alleged plot are politicians from Imo State who are said to have vowed that the Government of Sen. Hope Uzodimma will never have peace”, Emelumba said.
He alleged that “a serving member of the House of Representatives from Imo State is coordinating the destabilization plot.”
His words: “Part of the plot is to raise a petition to the Inspector General of Police that security has collapsed in the State and that the government has been overwhelmed by the challenges. They are going to use the recent unfortunate fate of our two Royal Fathers from Njaba to anchor their campaign.”
Emelumba said after the petition, the politicians plan to commence a destructive campaign for the declaration of a state of emergency in Imo.
He said with the N5bn at their disposal, they also plan to sponsor sundry protests and violence in Imo as a way of giving vent to their position as being real, followed by intensive national and International media propaganda.
Emelumba noted: ” As I am addressing you now, a member of the National Assembly is leading the campaign. A serving senator and a perennial governorship aspirant in the state are planning a courtesy call on the Inspector General of Police to serve him the poisoned chalice that Imo State is ungovernable.”
The commissioner alleged that those conspiring to unleash the fresh violence on Imo consist of politicians who lost the 2019 election and have refused to let go.
He also named those indicted by the White Paper on recovery of land and looted assets of the State as being behind what he described as “the politically contrived security breaches in the state.”
He further noted: “The actors had openly boasted to make the state ungovernable for Governor Hope Uzodinma, a threat he said “had been maliciously executed.”
Regretting that the perpetrators of the security breaches were dancing on the graves of innocent citizens, Emelumba wondered why they are still bent on causing more havoc in the state.
Hear him: “It is truly alarming that greed and vaulting ambition could drive people to such villainous levels as to desperately seek to sacrifice the lives of their fellow citizens and the progress of the State just to get back at someone.”
However, he warned: “Government was prepared to match them with legal force should they try to constitute themselves into security nuisance again.
” If in the first instance they took us by surprise, they will not have a second day.”
The Commissioner indicated that “Governor Uzodimma was ever ready to discharge his constitutional responsibility of securing lives and property of citizens of the state.”
He noted that “apart from pockets of security concerns like the murder of the royal fathers, Imo State has been largely peaceful as even acknowledged by the United Kingdom which didn’t list the State as one of the unsafe ones in its recent travel advisory note to citizens.”
Emelumba therefore advised Imo citizens to be on alert and be prepared to “resist the plot of disgruntled politicians to trigger another round of violence in the State.”