Hope Odidika Uzodimma

Senator Hope Odidika Uzodimma is the incumbent Governor of Imo State, having been declared winner of the 2019 Imo governorship election by a controversial Supreme Court ruling on 14 January 2020 that nullified the election of incumbent Emeka Ihedioha (PDP) on the basis that votes from 388 polling units had been wrongly excluded. He was re-elected on the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket in November 2023 and currently chairs the Progressive Governors' Forum. Before becoming governor he served two terms in the Senate as the representative of Imo West Senatorial District (2011-2019), initially elected on the PDP platform before defecting to the APC ahead of the 2019 cycle. The flagship pre-governorship allegation against Uzodimma is the so-called Calabar dredging or '$12 million NPA contract' matter. According to the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property (SPIPRPP), then chaired by Okoi Obono-Obla, a company linked to Uzodimma was awarded a roughly US$12 million contract by the Nigerian Ports Authority for dredging of the Calabar access channel but allegedly failed to execute the works after payment, prompting the panel to obtain a court order and briefly arrest the sitting senator at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on 12 November 2018 on suspicion of criminal conspiracy, diversion of public funds and official corruption. Uzodimma was released the same day and the SPIPRPP was itself wound down in 2019 after Obono-Obla was disbanded amid certificate-forgery allegations; no arraignment of Uzodimma on the NPA matter has ever proceeded to trial, and the EFCC has not publicly confirmed any open file. Since taking office, Uzodimma has faced a steady stream of civil-society and opposition petitions urging the EFCC and ICPC to probe Imo State spending, including allegations that over N330 billion in federal allocations to the 27 local governments between 2020 and 2025 cannot be properly accounted for, and a separate 2025 claim by opposition figures that as PGF chairman he diverted up to N800 billion in APC/Tinubu campaign funds - an allegation the South-East APC and the PGF have publicly rejected as 'spurious, baseless and politically motivated.' Uzodimma himself has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, declaring in November 2024 that 'I will leave office a free man, without being afraid of EFCC' and asserting that 'nobody can accuse me of corruption.' As a sitting governor he enjoys constitutional immunity from criminal prosecution under Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution; all allegations remain unproven, no court has convicted him, and this entry is therefore strictly classified as alleged.