Kinsmen protest Ohakim's ministerial bid

Following reports that the outgoing governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim, is lobbying President Goodluck Jonathan to make him a minister, a group has called on the president  not to appoint Ohakim as minister.

The group, League of Okigwe Professionals (LOP), comprising of Ohakim's kinsmen, warned that such a development would amount to Jonathan endorsing the "governor’s woeful performance in the state".
Ohakim, who was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost his bid for a second term in office to Rochas Okorocha, of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), in the just concluded
general elections.

According to the group, in a statement, "after the disgraceful ouster of Ohakim by Imo people as a result of non-performance and greed, the outgoing governor should for now disappear from public domain."

The statement, which was jointly signed by Rev. Fr. Jerome Nwokere (Okigwe LGA), Pastor Jones Umunna (Onuimo), Mr. Ohams Jonas, (Isiala Mbano), Nze Odika Iwu (Ehime Mbano), Rev. George Anyanwu (Ihitte-Uboma), and Mr. Charles Ala (Obowo), said that it was "disgraceful for Ohakim to be scheming to be appointed a minister after he wasted the opportunity the people of the state gave him to write his name in gold".

"With the dismal performance of Mr. Ohakim as governor of the state, there is no justification for the outgoing governor to aspire for a ministerial appointment," stated the group.

LOP also pointed out that it is laughable for Ohakim, who they claimed facilitated the sack of the Interior Minister, Captain Emmanuel Iheanacho, for failing to deliver his senatorial zone, to now be lobbying to be made a minister after losing the entire state.

Also, the group stated that it was an irony of fate that Ohakim was now begging for job from the same President Jonathan whom, they claimed, he wanted to displace as vice president during the administration of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

“When everybody in Nigeria was clamouring for the then Vice President Jonathan to be made acting president to move the country forward, Ohakim hired touts and urchins to demonstrate in support of then ailing President Yar A’dua," the group stated.

“Rather than continue to put Okigwe zone to shame, Ohakim should take a sabbatical so that his many sins would be forgotten by Imo people with the passage of time."