Imo PDP Caretaker Committee Chairman, John Jude Okere Writes on Imo @50

IMO STATE AT 50:

Ikenga Jonjude’s audit on Imo Leadership, Lost Opportunities and the Search for a Rebirth of the Eastern Heartland

As Imo State marks fifty years since its creation in 1976, the anniversary demands honest reflection more than celebration.

Few states in Nigeria possess Imo’s depth of human capital, cultural cohesion, and intellectual pedigree. Yet, five decades on, the state still grapples with a persistent gap between potential and performance. The story of Imo is, in many ways, the story of leadership; how power was used, misused, or cautiously preserved across military and civilian eras.

The early military administrators who midwifed the state between 1976 and 1979 laid the skeletal foundations of governance. Personalities such as Ndubuisi Kanu and his contemporaries were products of a COMMAND-AND-CONTROL era, more focused on order and structure than development outcomes. Ministries were established, civil service routines were created, and relative security was maintained. However, governance during this period was administrative rather than visionary. Education, healthcare, and infrastructure development were rudimentary, and citizen participation was virtually nonexistent. The military kept Imo functioning, but not progressing.

That pattern largely persisted during the prolonged return of military rule from 1984 to 1999. Administrators like Ike Nwachukwu, Allison Madueke, and Tanko Zubairu maintained stability and executed isolated infrastructure projects, particularly roads and public buildings. Yet, there was no coherent long-term ECONOMIC OR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK. Education stagnated, healthcare systems deteriorated quietly, and public amenities were treated as maintenance burdens rather than growth catalysts. Military rule preserved the state, but it did not prepare it for competitive relevance in a democratic Nigeria.

It was the brief but incandescent civilian interlude of Chief Samuel Onunaka Mbakwe that redefined what leadership could mean in Imo State. Between 1979 and 1983, Mbakwe governed with a clarity of purpose that remains unmatched. Against severe federal constraints, he invested aggressively in education, infrastructure, and public morale. Roads were built, schools expanded, and the Imo Airport, still operational decades later, stood as a bold declaration of ambition. Mbakwe’s greatest strength lay not merely in projects but in his emotional contract with the people. He governed as one of them, for them. His weakness, perhaps, was over-personalisation of vision; institutions were not sufficiently fortified to outlive his departure. Nonetheless, he set a benchmark that every successor has been judged against, and mostly found wanting.

The return to democracy in 1999 ushered in Chief Achike Udenwa, whose eight-year tenure is often underestimated. In contrast to Mbakwe’s fiery activism, Udenwa governed with restraint and institutional consciousness. His administration stabilised the civil service, improved salary and pension regularity, invested modestly in healthcare, and extended road networks into rural communities. Education did not collapse under his watch, and local governments regained some functional relevance. His major flaw was not failure, but silence. Udenwa neither marketed his achievements nor pursued transformative industrialisation. Yet, in retrospect, his era appears as one of the most orderly and fiscally responsible periods in Imo’s democratic history.

Chief Ikedi Ohakim’s administration, which followed, represented a sharp stylistic shift. He entered office with big ideas and an appetite for rapid reform. Urban renewal efforts, environmental sanitation drives, and attempts at administrative modernisation were notable. However, the ambition to do too much in a short time proved counterproductive. Projects lacked depth and continuity, political bridges were burned unnecessarily, and governance became confrontational. Rather than consolidating public trust, Ohakim dissipated it. His tenure illustrates a classic governance lesson: speed without sequencing leads to exhaustion, not excellence.

Rochas Okorocha’s eight years in office remain among the most controversial in Imo’s history. He rode into power on populist energy and genuine goodwill, introducing free education policies and embarking on visible infrastructure projects. However, these initiatives were poorly funded, weakly institutionalised, and ultimately unsustainable. Worse still, governance under Okorocha gradually mutated into personal rule. State institutions were subordinated to family interests, merit gave way to loyalty, and succession planning descended into brazen nepotism. Pensioners were abandoned, civil servants demoralised, and governance credibility severely eroded. What began as a populist experiment ended as a betrayal of public trust.

Emeka Ihedioha’s short-lived administration, though limited in time, left a distinct imprint. He sought to restore procedural order and civil service discipline, but his governance style was heavily centralised. Power clustered tightly around a narrow elite, and political inclusion was sacrificed for control. In a state emerging from years of institutional distortion, Imo required consensus-building and reassurance. Instead, the administration projected exclusivity. Though truncated by judicial intervention, the tenure demonstrated that even brief leadership periods can deepen divisions if empathy is absent.

The current administration of Hope Uzodinma presents a simulation to urban renewal as it has been seen that some roads have been constructed, and there is greater federal alignment. There is also the urge and effort to do legacy projects as a yearn to have an indelible inprint in the hearts of ndi hoping to be adopted into the hall of legendary the Governor Sam Mbakwe who still stands alone on that category.

Perhaps the consequential paradox of governance during a period of unprecedented federal allocations following the removal of fuel subsidies under the present national government, is that Imo State now has access to resources never unseen in previous administrations. Yet, one would stand corrected if one assumes that the visible works on ground when measured against the scale of available funds remain underwhelming. Since the administration of the present Governor is still ongoing ndi Imo expects to see visible outcomes in education as engineered by his education reform, also healthcare revitalisation, a more robust security architecture, and social welfare. Though insecurity still persists but has been critically check mated to a noticable measure.

Ndi Imo would expect to see the governors imprint on public hospitals, and the living experience of ordinary Imo citizens in correlation with increased state revenue. This is because history is rarely forgiving to leaders who inherit abundance and deliver moderation.

At fifty, Imo State’s challenge is no longer diagnosis; it is direction. The cumulative lesson of five decades is clear: personality-driven governance fails where institutions are weak, populism collapses without integrity, and resources mean little without strategic clarity. The future of Imo depends on leadership that understands governance as stewardship, not entitlement.

As Imo radiates in her gloden glow there is this cautious optimism that as a people we will reinvigorated our yearn for the right personality that can provide that alternative vision that will place Imo on the right leadership trajectory based on ideological clarity, and people-focused development, such leadership could reconnect Imo with her historic identity as the intellectual and economic nerve centre of the East.

The golden days of the Eastern Heartland are not myths of the past. They are deferred possibilities, waiting for leadership equal to the destiny of the people with deliberate and visionary balance.

Happy golden jubilee to ndi Imo home and abroad.

Ikenga Jonjude Okere

Chairman Imo PDP Caretaker Committee