.Celebrates 5 years in office today
Victor Duruamaku Owerri
Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma has revealed that he inherited a disjointed judiciary weighed down by debts when he took over the administration of the state
The Governor revealed this on Tuesday evening during a phone programme held in Owerri the state capital
He further said that on assumption of office, he took up the problem of the state judiciary and cleared all the bills
The Governor expressed worry over the circumstance that led to the removal of the state Chief Judge, Justice Theresa Chikeka by the National Judicial Council (NJC) saying that the administration would this time do proper screening of eligible judicial officers before appointing an acting chief judge
According to him, ” we are now waiting for the communication from the National Judicial Council, (NJC) which will recommend and ratify qualified candidates for the position
He noted that what happened which led to the removal of the immediate past Chief Judge was very.embarasing to the state and therefore the administration would do proper screening in the appointment to avoid a repeat of the same.
He believed that judiciary being the hope of the common man must and should be manned by very decent and qualified judicial officers.
” when we get communication from NJC we will appoint an acting chief judge and to do this now we will do proper security screening to get a credible judicial officer to be the state chief judge” he emphasised.
On the corruption that rocked the state ministry of lands before his inception, the Governor explained that he took over as the commissioner for lands because of the level of corruption he noticed in the ministry.
He wondered how one man would have about 50 parcels of land while some people who needed one can not get it noting that several certificate of occupancies were traced to one land.
According to the Governor, the administration would soon start the screening of certificate of occupancies pointing out that the reason is to ensure that lands get to the rightful owners.