There is strong indication that the wife of the Imo State governor, Nneoma Nkechi Rochas Okorocha, established her pet project for personal business gain at the expense of the poor and helpless.
The pet project, SHE NEEDS A ROOF PROGRAMME [SNARP], was initiated by the Imo First Lady supposedly to enable poor and helpless widows. The program was designed to help a poor widow from each of the 27 local government areas to build a house of her own. A total of 27 houses were to be built for 27 widows.
Having completed each of the houses – designed as a two-bedroom bungalow, the governor’s wife decided to commission them.
According to the reports from within her office, the commissioning of the houses – in each of the LGAs by the governor’s wife turned the supposedly charity program into a money raising business venture to Nneoma Rochas.
Each of the houses, according to information from the office of the First Lady, cost an estimated N3million, thus, the 27 houses cost a total of N81million to erect. But it was gathered that upon the commissioning of each of the houses in each of the 27 LGAs, the governor’s wife recouped the N81million expended in erecting the homes – plus more – more than tenfold more.
As 247ureports.com gathered through impeccable sources, at each of the events, members of the state house of assembly, local government sole administrators, all government appointees, political office aspirants, and those scheming for appointments were made to donate handsomely in support of the project, and they did. Each LGA competed to be the highest donor and supporter of the SNARP – in order not to lose or miss the eventual blessing of the governor. All the donors who pledged soon redeemed their pledges.
No LGA contributed less than N50 million each. In Obowo and Ngor Okpala where the Finance Commissioner and the Accountant General hail from respectively, the First Lady realized N80million each. Thus, the governor’s wife realized a little over N1.3billion from the supposed pet project – turned private money raising venture.
The essence of this support, it was learnt, was for Mrs. Okorocha to build more houses for more indigent widows in each of the LGA. But, information available to 247ureports.com has it that out of the sum, the governor’s wife had made arrangement to build another round of 27 houses which will cost N81million – out of the N1.3billion – thus raising questions of what happens to the remaining N1.1billion realized.
Mrs. Okorocha began a tour of the 27 council areas in the name of the 2013 Women August Meeting where she donated trophies and empowered two women from each community with a revolving loan of N20,000.
In the same vein, the LGA sole administrators, members of the state house of assembly, immediate past commissioners and appointees and those looking for recognition from the governor labored to dole out huge sums to support the tour.
Having managed to spend less than N1million for the trophies and the revolving loan in each of the LGAs (wives of SOLADS organized the event), the wife of the governor went home with an additional gain of more than N5million from each LGA as cash donations.
Speaking to journalists after the governor’s wife visited his LGA, one of the sole administrators in the state described the First Lady’s gesture as Greek and Pyrrhic gift whereby the people of the LGA receive little while the governor’s takes plenty.
According to the SOLAD who pleaded anonymity, ‘we expected her to give part of the cash donations we made to the communities to enable them organize their own meetings.
‘This is exactly what she did when she commissioned her pet project, SNARP’
