Imo State Governor Owelle Rochas Okorocha has inaugurated 637 Government Liaison Officers GLOs to the Community Governments Council (CGC) with a charge that they should go home and develop their communities.

While inaugurating the GLOs yesterday in Owerri, the state capital, Okorocha said they were appointed to help use their potentials to contribute to the development of their communities. He noted that life is meaningless if it cannot be used to help those in need or contribute to making the society better than one met it.

“We are stronger in the community than in the local government. We are stronger in the community than we are in the state and the federal levels,” the governor said, arguing that if the economy is strong in the community, the economy of the country would be stronger.

Okorocha described the community as the base upon which we all operate and regretted that the community has been long neglected.

He described the GLOs as responsible citizens of the communities who have excelled in life and who can assume the level of governance in their communities and begin to transform them. He advised the GLOs to shun selfishness and work hard to better their communities, stressing that they are simply representing the governor and the government to ensure that all policies and programmes are properly harnessed and implemented accordingly.

Okorocha charged the GLOs to go to their communities and organise their people, including those in the Diaspora, to come up and develop their communities. Describing the inauguration of the GLOs as awake-upcall to all and sundry, he directed them to ensure that in the next one or two years every community must have its own cottage industry to create employment in the communities.

The governor charged the GLOs to go and kick-start the community government with the ezes (traditional rulers) and the Executive Secretaries, stressing that they should resist the temptation of trying to usurp the work of the traditional rulers or the President Generals (PGs).

Speaking earlier the Commissioner for Community Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Barr. Ugochi Nnanna Okoro, said that the meeting was a very important one as it brought together the major drivers of the community government council who would ensure that the dream of the government in this direction is realised.

The commissioner enumerated the roles of the GLOs to include encouraging and stimulating development in the communities, as well as the provision of an avenue for co-operationbetween the communities, the government and donor agencies concerned with grass root development.

Others include promotion of cultural heritage and establishment of changes of communication within themselves and the government; and encouraging public-spirited individuals, private and business sectors to show interest in the investment and development of the communities.

She warned against the unusual bad blood of struggle for supremacy and selfish interest associated with the rural communities.

Present at the occasion were the Deputy Governor, Sir Jude Agbaso; Secretary to the State government, Prof. Anthony Anwuka; Chief of Staff Government House, Prince Eze Madumere; legislators, State Executive Council Executive Secretaries members and the traditional rulers.

•Photo: Governor Okorocha.