|
By Chidi Nkwopara, Owerri
Posted to the Web: Saturday, December 17, 2005
The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Richard Gozney, has condemned in very strong terms, the recent use of firearms on defenceless Imo people by the police and army personnel dispatched to check the demonstrating loyalists of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).
Gozney made the feelings of the British Government known in Government House, Owerri, when he paid a visit to Governor Achike Udenwa. He said it was very wrong for the police and army personnel, who are paid with public funds to defend the citizenry, to turn round and use firearms against the same people they are meant to protect.
The High Commissioner equally used the opportunity to demand that all the personnel found to have actively participated in wasting human lives during the MASSOB protest a fortnight ago should be brought to book, since it is against democratic principles.
“The British Government is interested in the present six geo-political zonal structure in Nigeria but I must say that we will be opposed to anything that will split the country,” Gozney said. While commending the state government for achieving up to 40 per cent of the capital expenditure during the 2005 fiscal year, the High Commissioner also called on members of the State House of Assembly to be stricter in the discharge of their oversight functions.
In his response, Imo State Governor, Chief Achike Udenwa, appealed to the British Government to assist the state administration in the development of technical education and her private sector economy.
“If your home government assists this administration in these two areas, it would help in reducing to a manageable proportion, the level of unemployment, as well as our honest bid to give gainful employment to our teeming unemployed but employable youths,” Udenwa said.
While saying that the High Commissioner’s visit would enable him to assess at first hand, the developments in the state, the governor was also of the view that that the achievements recorded by his administration within the past six years has uplifted the standard of living of the citizenry.
Udenwa expressed deep appreciation for the British Government’s efforts at ensuring that true democracy reigns in Nigeria and promised that the state “government is doing and will do anything possible to enthrone the tenets of democratic culture. |
