The governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodimma, has said he would arrest and prosecute Senator Athan Achonu, the governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the state.
Achonu is one of the contenders against Uzodimma in the November 11 governorship election.
Speaking in Owerri, Uzodimma accused the LP candidate of claiming to have built primary healthcare centres across the 27 local government areas.
The governor said Achonu who formerly represented Imo North senatorial district, had in no time built community healthcare centres, insisting that such a claim was misleading and a criminal act punishable by law.
Uzodimma said the former lawmaker allegedly made away with millions of dollars allocated to the healthcare project by the federal government.
The governor said Imo State’s federal allocation was being deducted at source in payment of the “embezzled funds”, noting that the deduction was inhibiting development in the state.
He said; “One of the governorship contestants who embezzled the primary healthcare funds of the 27 LGA health centres in the state went to court and obtained a fraudulent judgement.
“This is a criminal act and I must follow it to the end. I will arrest and prosecute him before the November 11 governorship election.
“Imo is using the money which could be channeled to other development projects to offset huge debts incurred by one man in the name of a primary healthcare projects. Does this person want the best for Imo state?”
In his reaction, Chibuikem Diala, the director of media and publicity of the Athan Achonu campaign organisation, said the governor may be “hallucinating”.
Diala said the LP candidate had completed over 70 percent of the primary healthcare projects in the state, adding that they were visible and functional in many communities, including that of the governor.
“The allegation that Mathan Nigeria Limited, owned by Senator Achonu, collected billions of Naira from the federal government for the construction of primary healthcare centres in each of the 774 local government areas in the country and later abandoned the project, is completely false and a mere blackmail.
“The projects, as we speak, are very visible and functional in several communities of the state, including Omuma which is the governor’s country home.
“This is nothing but a political witch-hunting against our principal whose popularity is overwhelming the APC family.
“If not, why is it that it is only now when the Imo governorship election is around the corner and Senator Achonu is garnering massive followership that this unverified issue suddenly appeared to be a public discourse?
“It is necessary to also state here that 195 PHCs had been completed pre -2020 and 363 PHCs completed post-2020.
“This makes it a total of 558 PHCs accounting for over 70% of the total centres, which further corroborates the point that the project is still ongoing.”
He dismissed Uzodimma’s accusations as “wicked lies from the pit of hell” and “mere political fabrications” intended to distract the popularity of the LP candidate in the forthcoming polls.
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