Following Thursday June 16, 2015 edition of Newspaper Newspaper where a front page caption carried a story on the wife of the Governor of Imo State, thus “Female Security Officers shun Imo First Lady’s office; Nneoma Nkechi resorts to Male Detail”, the Governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha has reacted.
In a letter signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Sam Onwuemedo, the Governor maintained that it was the prerogative of his office to allocate security to the wife, since the office of the First Lady does not exist in the constitution, but solely depends on the office of the Governor for survival.
“In other words, the first Lady does not decide the kind of Security Personnel that would work in her office whether they would be male or female. She does not decide or determine how many they would be” the Governor said. In a letter to the Editor, it read thus.
“Our attention was drawn to the story with the referenced caption which was published on the front page of your Newspaper, in your edition of Tuesday June 16, 2015.
In the story, your medium created none existent impression by alluding that female Security Officers in the office of the first lady, Nneoma Nkechi Okorocha deserted the place over neglect, which warranted her to resort to male security personnel.
You also clearly accused Her Excellency of not being mindful of the welfare of the female security officers in her office for which, you said they left, which your medium also said gave rise to the engagement of male officers. At the end of the day, a source in the first lady’s office said to have pleaded anomnity was quoted by your newspaper.
We won’t bother ourselves with the false claims in the story in question and what whoever was behind the moonlight tale wanted to achieve.
Our interest is to tell the correct story and for which I decided to do the refutal myself because the office of the first lady is a creation of the office of His Excellency, the Executive Governor of the State.
The office of the first lady has no place in the Constitution. It does not have any financial vote in that capacity. Like earlier pointed out, the office of the Executive Governor feeds the first lady’s office in terms of who works there as security officers among other issues. And it is always the case in all the States. The office of the first lady does not have any executive function.
In other words, the first lady does not decide the kind of security personnel that would work in her office whether they would be male or female. She does not decide or determine how many they would be. But one fact remains sacrosanct, she needs security as the governor’s wife. And the office of the governor decides who and who work with her as security officers. And the prevailing scenario determines their number and whether they would be female or male.
If the governor had given the wife female security details to work with her before and during the election, and after the election, when he feels the envy occasioned by election victory is still on the high side, he could decide to opt for male security officers for her. And that was exactly what happened. It was not something anybody would begin to make much ado about.
Unfortunately, we are in a society where anybody removed from a particular position he or she is not prepared to leave must try to express his or her anger one way or the other.
There is nothing strange about His Excellency settling for male security operatives for the wife following the prevailing atmosphere in the State prompted by the outcome of the April 2015 governorship election.
We will appreciate it if you place our refutal the same position you placed the story in question”.
