By STEVE UZOECHI, Owerri

Barely 48 hours after the Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma addressed the people in a state-wide broadcast urging strict compliance to social restrictions, his government flagrantly violated its own rules and the Federal Government’s directive on social distancing.

This followed an elaborate swearing-in ceremony Monday morning, which drew appointees and well-wishers from across the state to the Ahiajoku Conference Centre, New Owerri.

In a swift reaction, Civil Society groups have called for the dismantling of the event immediate dispersing of the crowd of attendees as such an elaborate ceremony was clearly insensitive and condemnable.

However, the crowd that thronged the Ahiajoku Conference Centre defied all sound medical and emergency counsel attendant to the rampaging COVID-19 pandemic.

Though there was a sanitizer and testing team at the entry gate but the crowd of more than 700 persons sitting and standing in close proximity largely placed attendees at the function at a great risk of contracting the virus.

Not even the police teams at the venue lived up to their responsibilities as they hung around doing nothing in clear violation of the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu’s directive the previous day, to AIGs and Commissioners to enforce the social restriction orders across the country.

Much the same way some schools in the state capital were still in session by Monday morning with the police doing little or nothing to enforce the IGP’s directive.

By 11:30 am, the hall at the Ahiajoku Conference Centre was still packed with people waiting for the arrival of the governor for the commencement of the swearing-in ceremony – totally oblivious of the health risk.

Sadly, only a very few attendees had their face masks on while the vast majority were clearly oblivious of the exigencies of the time.

Commenting, Dr. Jude Ohanele of Development Dynamics described the elaborate swearing-in ceremony as condemnable.

He maintained that considering the global emergency occasioned by the rapid spread of the COVID-19, that it was a dangerous gamble to gather such crowd in a closed space for a mere swearing-in ceremony.(New Telegraph)