TheCable

Osmund Agbo, a US-based Nigerian doctor and author, says the biggest challenge confronting the south-east is bad governance from the region’s political leaders. 

He also blamed a lack of political sophistication for the woes bedevilling the geopolitical zone.

Osmund said this during an interview with Rudolf Okonkwo, host of 90Minutes Africa.

“One of the biggest problems in Igbo land is that we are not politically sophisticated,” Agbo said.

“We don’t seem to care to know about what is going on in our place.

“Ignoring the fact that we don’t do our own part, our own part is to put leaders on the spot so that they will realise that people are now asking questions.

“What it takes for the leaders to succeed in impunity is the fact that the people don’t care.

“The moment they start knowing that people are listening and watching what they are doing, you’ll see that things will start to change in our place.

“Though bad governance is not peculiar to the south-east, we always have a way of making things worse.

“The governors in the region are acting like emperors. So we want to beam a searchlight on those in positions of public trust so that the public will be sensitised enough to ask.”

The doctor at the Memorial Hermann Hospital’s Department of Pulmonary/Critical Care in Houston, also criticised the governors of the region for “their refusal to acknowledge LG autonomy and for treating local councils as mere extensions of their respective departments and ministries”.

Explaining the rationale behind the founding of Ikengaonline, a digital newspaper, he said it is to act as a truly independent media organisation that tells the story of the south-east and ensures public accountability in governance across the region.