Governor Rochas Okorocha's Ministry of Happiness is yet to be consolidated as the commissioner idly occupies a fictitious office with zero responsibilities.
Governor Rochas Okorocha and Ogechi Ololo
Barely six weeks after Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State established the Ministry of Happiness and Purpose Fulfillment headed by his sister, Ogechi Ololo, the ministry is yet to secure an office.
Similarly, Ololo is yet to get additional staff drafted to her to build the new ministry. She is still working from her office as Deputy Chief of Staff (Domestic) and using her former staff which is a little more than half a dozen.
However, there are indications that the Ministry of Happiness and Purpose Fulfillment, which many believe to have been established by executive fiat, is making arrangement to secure office space at the Trade and Investment Centre, new Owerri.
Not a few persons believe the ministry may have been set up to facilitate distribution of materials for ‘stomach infrastructure’ and may, after all, not need the entire gamut of staff required by a full blown government ministry.
Presently, there are no directors and no Permanent Secretary deployed to the Ministry. As such, it may be an uphill task drafting government workers, whose job title and specification have to be spelt out, to the ministry.
Furthermore, it is still uncertain the size of the budgetary provisions for the new ministry and what is the ministry’s corporate objective for the 2018 fiscal year.
Speaking on the Ministry, Aku Obidinma, Coordinator of Imo People’s Action for Democracy (IPAD), said: “From day one, that ministry was a ruse. Having created so much unhappiness in the state with a looming protest organised by IPAD underway in December, he rushed into creating the ministry as a psychological manipulation of the people.”
For the National Organizing Secretary of the newly formed Mass Action Joint Alliance (MAJA), Engr. Promise Digos, the formation of the ministry was an abuse of office by the governor, as the office was more of a product of impulse than it was of careful consideration.
He said: “For all I know, that office serves no meaningful purpose to the state. It’s just a whimsical creation to service the insatiable cravings of the first family.
Ogechi Ololo has further been enriched and the purpose of the ministry has been served. If you are waiting for anything else beyond using the office to disburse political patronage to cronies, you will wait forever.”
Source: New Telegraph