No public fund is good money – Okorocha

Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha has warned political leaders in the country against looting public treasury, saying “no public fund is good money.” He gave the warning yesterday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, at a retreat of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), which was monitored in Abuja by our correspondent. Speaking during a session with the theme ‘Life After Office: Perspectives and Challenges,’ Okorocha declared that no leader would enjoy looted funds. The governor said when a leader serves people well those people would become his security after leaving office. “People don’t know that no public fund is good money...If you keep public money in your private bank account and someone in your state has a problem and is crying, that cry is going into that account,” Okorocha said. He added that a leader should not worry about life after office, but to see what he can do with his power to touch people’s lives. “And when you do that, you’d be as comfortable as ever,” the governor said. He also asked public office holders to beware of people patronising them, saying: “The friends of office are more. Your real friends don’t come to you when you’re in power, but the friends of office who are champions. There are people in the country today, no matter who the governor or the president is, they must find themselves in the corridors of power. These are the people you should beware of because they’re for everybody.” Okorocha also asked political leaders to stop deceiving people by dramatising poverty which, according to him, does not mean humility, but stupidity. The governor described poverty as a contagious disease worse than AIDS. “Sometimes, people think that dramatisation of poverty means humility. For me, dramatisation of poverty is stupidity because more often than not, you make people to believe that the moment you behave poor in Nigeria, that’s when you’re assumed to be humble. Humility simply means bringing yourself from the high position and coming down to relate with ordinary people,” Okorocha said. “And poverty, by the way, is contagious. I went through poverty in my life and I prayed and swore to fight it that never again will my generation, not even my family, experience poverty. Poverty is the worst disease. Poverty is worse than AIDS. It is better you’ve AIDS and you’re rich than to have poverty. I don’t like political leaders dramatising poverty claiming they’re humble. That’s deceit,” he added.