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This Saturday's governorship election will definitely shed the much desired light on the shape of things to come in the country's next major polls slated for 2011, as the citizens of the country battle cliques of people who would go to any length to grab power... FULL STORY...
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Fraud allegations:Ohakim beats up whistle-blower
By DICKSON OMONODE












WHISTLE blower on Imo Governor, Ikedi Ohakim's alleged misdeeds, Samuelson Ikenna Iwuoha claims been brutally assaulted personally by the State's Chief Executive Officer for daring to soil his name. The no-holds-barred critic of Ohakim's government, who has authored over 340 articles bearing allegations of fraud going on in the Imo State government House.
Under siege from the Government House security for a long time, Samuelson's recent ordeal, sources say is allegedly targeted at intimidating and silencing him ahead of an imminent probe of the financial FULL STORY...


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Fraud allegations:Ohakim beats up whistle-blower

• Moves to jail Samuelson …To hamper House probe

By DICKSON OMONODE

WHISTLE blower on Imo Governor, Ikedi Ohakim's alleged misdeeds, Samuelson Ikenna Iwuoha claims been brutally assaulted personally by the State's Chief Executive Officer for daring to soil his name. The no-holds-barred critic of Ohakim's government, who has authored over 340 articles bearing allegations of fraud going on in the Imo State government House.

Under siege from the Government House security for a long time, Samuelson's recent ordeal, sources say is allegedly targeted at intimidating and silencing him ahead of an imminent probe of the financial and other atrocities by the House of Representatives.

National Daily gathered that the recent move by the governor to jail him with his contacts started penultimate week, on January 21, 2010 at his residence, Plot 98 Ikenegbu Layout, Owerri. At about 6.40 am on that fateful day, a group of five heavily-armed security details had stormed his residence, to inform the civil right activist and initiator of SLAP that the governor had demanded that he be brought to the Government House in Owerri.

Courageously, he had followed them in a vehicle to the Government House, where he was confronted by a hostile Ikedi Ohakim, who was said to have looked at him with scorn. According to Samuelson, the presence of the governor only inflamed the situation as he (Ohakim) expressly ordered that he be stripped naked, after which he ordered him to raise his hands above his head.

“He asked me to hands up, and asked me to say all my e-mail addresses and their passwords. He also demanded for my flash, but I told him that they were not with me. Afterwards he started to hit me, while the chief security officer pointed a gun to my head, saying he could kill me and nothing would happen. They flogged me with koboko (horse whip) and used some hard objects to inflict injuries on me. They even said I should leave the state if I didn't want to be hurt. After giving me over hundred strokes of the koboko, they handed me over to the police, who took me to Criminal Investigation Bureau at the Police Headquarters to detain me. But on Friday January 22, 2010, I was brought out by the IPO, one Musa, who took me to a room to have a brief discussion with the lawyer contracted on my behalf. It was then that I was told that I would be arraigned in court that same day. My lawyer left us and went to the court to wait for us, but two hours later, I was told again that the idea had been dropped. But on Monday January 25, 2010, I was arraigned on a three count charge bordering on defamation of character. At the court, my lawyer said that I should remove my shirt so that the magistrate would see the evidence of physical assault meted out to me but the magistrate turned it down,” alleged Samuelson in a report he gave to a group, Concerned Citizens of Imo.
Samuelson was eventually refused bail, but his bail application would be looked into this week when the case comes up for hearing.

Though Ohakim's aides were said to have denied that the governor physically assaulted Samuelson as they claimed he was on a trip to Abuja at the time, some groups alleged the governor decided to thread this violent path on account of desperation. One of the sources alleged that Ohakim wants to bundle Samuelson into jail to make sure that he does not come to testify against him should the House of Assembly decide to set up a probe panel against him anytime soon.

National Daily learnt that the buzz of a probe is currently wafting amongst some members of the House, who believe that it behoves on them to do so, following all the fraud allegations being raised in the media in recent weeks. Sources said the members have been citing the probe initiated by the House on the former governor, Achike Udenwa, communicated in a letter with reference number: IHA/AD-H/001/11 and dated 18/10/1999 as a reason to initiate a probe on his successor.

A few weeks ago, National Daily ran a cover on the same issue, which had the governor's media aides inviting journalists to Owerri for on-the-spot assessment of the governor's accomplishments. But the move sort of back fired when The Guardian's reporter who attended the press parley published an article which rubbished Ohakim's claims of success in the state.

These series of articles, National Daily gathered spawned some advertorials in some newspapers, which cost the government some millions of naira, dispensed through the commissioner for Information.
In all respects, the allegations against Ohakim by Samuelson Iwuoah are quite revealing and damning. According to Iwuoha's petition, Imo governor has a history of reckless financial abuse starting from his days as a Commissioner in the late Senator Chief Evan Enwerem's tenure as governor in Imo State in 1993.
Meanwhile The Concerned Citizens of Imo believe that the recent move by the governor is rather stretched too far, since the matter on the ground is a civil matter.

But the Chief Press Secretary Henry Ekpe in a telephone chat with National Daily denied all the allegations. He said that the governor is too busy thinking of what to do to improve the lot of the state and has no time to waste on people like Samuelson. “The governor is busy 24 hours thinking about the state and what to do to better the lot of its people. So when does he have the time to waste on Samuelson. Who is he?”

He however would not confirm if the governor was in Owerri on the day of Samuelson's arrest. Ekpe was furious that Samuelson has been feeding the press with falsehoods about Ohakim and regrettably the reports were being published without efforts to confirm them.