Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
Women rights activists under the aegis of the Coalition of Women Rights Defenders (CWRD) have sent a petition to the wife of the president, Mrs Aisha Buhari, over an alleged assault on Uloma Nwosu, daughter of former Imo State governor Senator Rochas Okorocha, by a member of the state’s Committee on Recovery of Government Properties, led by Jasper Ndubuaku.
The women, gathering in Owerri, the Imo state capital, staged a protest to express their grievance in regards to the alleged slapping of the former governor’s daughter.
In a communique read on behalf of the women, Lilian Enyi, a protest leader, said, “For the past five weeks or thereabouts, virtually all female opposition politicians in Imo state and in indeed our little children have continued to live in perpetual fear, agony and trepidation as a result of the unholy and unprecedented molestation, harassment and intimidation of our people, especially women, by Governor Ihedioha’s committee.”
The communique claims that the governor “has shown disheartening disregard for women in Imo especially and the nation in general,” by his continued silence on the matter.
Besides the attack on Okorocha’s daughter, Enyi alleged that the Recovery Committee has physically attacked immediate and past appointees of the immediate past government, as well as business interests of businesses owned by prominent women in the state.
Meanwhile, the women, through the office of the First Lady, has appealed to president Muhammadu Buhari to protect Imo women from attacks and embarrasment meted on them by the state government.
The women activits also seized the opportunity to call on other women rights advocates across the country to join them in condemning the assault.
Also, the women while urging the governor to settle down and attend to his numerous jobs of governance gave him an ultimatum of four days to find those behind the slapping of Uloma Nwosu, who is the wife of Ihedioha’s electoral rival during the last general election and Okorocha’s son-in-law, Uche Nwosu.