By Robert AKPAN, Senior Investigator Correspondent Lagos/
LAGOS– GOVERNOR Hope Uzodinma of Imo State has praised his administration for emplacing a robust security architecture in the state saying that the war against all manners of crimes and criminality was being won.
He stated this during the 31st edition of the Annual Lecture/Awards of the Crime Reporters Association of Nigeria, CRAN, which was held in Ikeja, Lagos State.
Uzodinma, who received CRAN’s coveted Platinum Award in Fight Against Insecurity, was among 36 respected and deserving Nigerians recognized by the association for their services to the country and humanity.
Receiving the award, the Governor who was represented by the Commissioner for Information, Hon. Declan Emelumba, said he was quite happy that his dogged fight against insecurity in Imo State had been noticed, applauded and then appreciated.
He said that it was because the fight against insecurity was yielding dividends that attention could now be given to other essential issues in the state.
According to Emelumba, if not for insecurity which took most of the governor’s attention and enormous money, the state would have become incredibly transformed to the level that other states would be envious of Imo.
He further explained that it was because the insecurity had been tackled and checkmated to a certain level that the governor decided to focus attention on other important state matters, which led to the promotion of civil servants across the board in the state. This promotion was announced on Wednesday, said Emelumba.
Accordingto him,“The governor wanted to be here himself, but today is the All Progressives Congress (APC) rally in Ebonyi State, so he had to stay. The rally is within his zone and he is the Chairman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council in the South-East, so there was no way he could have stayed away from there. But he said I should come to represent him. His Excellency is super excited with the award because it hits to the point of his dogged fight against insecurity in Imo State, which has worked and today, Imo State is relatively safe.”
He further stated: “When people appreciate sacrifices made in restoring peace in Imo State, then the Governor too will be happy. When you appreciate somebody for what he has done, he will do more. He said I should thank CRAN, for not only watching and monitoring what he had been doing in Imo state, and is still doing, but for appreciating it. Civil servants in Imo State had never been promoted in the past 10 years because of the enormous amount of money involved, but just yesterday (Wednesday) he approved the promotion of all civil servants in Imo State across the board. This is happening now because there is peace in Imo State and the governor can now focus on other important things.”
