One of the critical questions I asked in one of the recent articles in the Leadership Series on Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State was: ‘Do Ndigbo still have men and women of courage who could speak out against the ills in our land? Since I asked that question nobody, not even the media, has stood up to be counted. Nobody from Abia State, including serving elected members of the National Assembly, elders and other highly-placed persons from the state, could speak up against the excesses of the governor and his son, for fear of being chastised. Unexpectedly, somebody from unusual quarters, in the person of Chief Arthur Eze, saved the day. He has proved to the world, through his outspokenness, that Igbo still have men of courage and valour.
I was elated by the story on Page 7 of The Sun newspaper of September 1, 2014 entitled: Abia Stinks, Says billionaire Arthur Eze. According to the story, the Anambra-born billionaire oil magnate, delivered the damning verdict last week in Umuahia as the guest of the Abia State government on the occasion of the state’s 23rd anniversary. Instead of pouring encomiums on the state government, which was what it had expected to get by inviting the oil merchant, he took the government to the cleaners. Let me quote him verbatim to drive home the seriousness of the situation: “Abia is stinking. Right from Abia Tower Umuahia (on the Enugu Port Harcourt Expressway), the rot hits you. Abia State is now the dirtiest in the country. (There is) garbage everywhere, along with bad roads. The people are really suffering, and you see it in their faces. Are there no elders in Abia again? If so, what are they doing? What are the Senators, the members of the House of Representatives and other elected people doing? Nothing! Facing the governor, he continued, if you do not know what to do again, please write to President Goodluck Jonathan, and let him come to your help.” At the end of his speech, he dropped the microphone on the floor and walked away.
In his usual sly manner, Governor Orji, jerking himself out of stupor took up the microphone and tried to rationalize what Chief Arthur had said. According to the report, the governor was quoted as saying that the rot Arthur Eze referred to in his speech was the collapsed Port Harcourt/Aba Expressway, which is a federal road. How many people believed his futile defence? Why did he not summon up courage to accept responsibility for the failure of his government rather than drag the Federal Government into the matter? I have always said that Governor Orji is not a man anybody can trust. Like Peter, he denied President Jonathan without blinking the lid. That speaks volumes about the man’s slippery character. Imagine what would happen if a more serious situation crops up tomorrow and he is called upon to defend President Jonathan or anybody for that matter, where his own personal interest is involved.
I recall what former President Olusegun Obasanjo told him when he (Gov. Orji) went to see him some time in the recent past. He told Governor Orji: “If you could betray Orji Kalu, then you can betray God.” He could not believe what he heard. Those who know the man well can tell you that he is a chameleon – a very tricky person.
What Chief Arthur Eze had done was to reinforce what I had been saying since 2009 that Governor Theodore Orji is incompetent to hold the office of governor. I saw his incapacitation 18 months after he assumed office as governor and drew his attention privately to it. I told him point-blank in 2009 that he had performed abysmally in the past 18 months and should not seek a second term. I even gave him a soft-landing by asking him to nominate someone reliable to succeed him. He took offence at what I had said and rather than accept his weaknesses, he chose to fight me. Goaded by some Abuja-based politicians and those that could not have access to the state’s treasury for the eight years we served as governor, he went wild, threatening fire and brimstone. He embraced falsehood as a weapon for the war of attrition against me. He has called me all kinds of names and worked frenetically to tarnish my reputation ever since.
Before Chief Arthur Eze’s bombshell, I had challenged Abia sons and daughters in positions of authority to rise up to the occasion and call the governor to order. Chief Eze’s expose could not have come at a better time. When I wrote that Abia people were in bondage and suffering unduly, some people called me names. Most of those that took to the path of infamy were the governor’s attack dogs, working in collaboration with their friends in the media, who have chosen to fill their pockets with filthy lucre rather than stand by the impoverished people.
I hold the media in high esteem, but this view has been shaken by the infidelity and unprofessionalism of some of the media practitioners who have not written a line against the excesses of the government in Umuahia. Some of these media hackers and quacks prefer the handout from the government to the defence of the truth, which has been trampled under feet unconscionably. I have a comprehensive list containing the names of these shameless journalists, the media they work for, and how much each collects from the Abia State Government to bend the truth. I will make it public at the appropriate time.
There is no way the media can afford to compromise their position, because of the constructive role they are expected to play in the furtherance of our democracy.
Abia people will forever be grateful to Chief Arthur Eze for calling a spade a spade. I wish to place on record, however, that it is only men and women of Arthur Eze’s ilk that could make such a bold statement in the face of adversity. I have known the antecedents of Chief Arthur Eze over the years. He is a no-nonsense man, not given to shenanigans. He speaks his mind as it is and does not condone injustice. This is why his comment should be taken very seriously. Forget the fruitless efforts being made by the government of Abia State to rationalize what he had said, because they know deep in their hearts that what the man said was the truth and nothing but the truth.
In terms of material riches, I can state without any fear of equivocation, that Arthur Eze is one of the five richest Nigerians alive today. He has the largest oil block in the whole of Africa, and that confers on him enormous wealth and influence.
So, what else does he want from anybody that would make him not to speak his mind as he deems fit? Those who insinuate parochialism or anything else do so out of either ignorance or self-pity. What could easily be taken away from what he said is that Abia State needs redemption. And it will get it soon.
Those who are skeptical about what is really happening in Abia State should take a short trip to the state to see things for themselves. Nobody can cover up the truth. The truth is immutable, no matter how hard you work to destroy it.
Just as Arthur Eze had asked, I repeat: where are our men and women of substance? Why have they chosen to keep silent when they are expected to speak up? Why should they fold their arms and watch Abia State disintegrate? Do they not know that our people are suffering? Is their silence borne out of fear or intimidation? Where is the manliness in them that they should all abdicate their manhood when it mattered most?
I have asked these questions because I am aware that Abia State has powerful sons and daughters, both at home and in the Diaspora, who can stand up to be counted anywhere in the world. If I may ask: Where are people like General Ike Nwachukwu (one-time military governor, minister and Senator); General Azubuike Ihejirika (immediate past Chief of Army Staff); Col. Akobundu and Navy Commander Chris Osundu (both former military administrators); Senator Adolphus Wabara (former Senate President); Vincent Ogbulafor (former Minister of Special Duties under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime); Chief Ojo Maduekwe (former minister and now an ambassador); Elder Emmanuel Adaelu (one of the champions for the creation of Aba State);Chief Tony Ukasanya (former PDP chairman in Abia State); Prof. Ihechukwu Madubuike (one-time Minister of Health); Senator Chris Adighije; Chief Onyema Ugochukwu (former NDDC Chairman and gubernatorial candidate of PDP in Abia State in 2011);Chief Chuku Wachuku (former DG, NDE); Chief Allen Nwachukwu (Commissioner for Works in the first term of our administration);Chief Mao Ohuabunwa (former member, House of Representatives), etc.
Let me ask again: Should a state with this retinue of personalities be led by a lacklustre governor? Should one man (out of sheer desperation for power) take all of them for a ride and they keep quiet? They need to address these questions because things are quickly getting out of hand. Abia State is now being governed by a man who has no respect for the rule of law or constitutionality. I must have made a mistake in the choice of Governor Orji, but it was a mistake of the mind, not of the heart. At the time we settled for him as my successor, he did not show any of the strange attitudes he is exhibiting today. I had told the story in this column how I met him and how he worked as my chief of staff in Government House, Umuahia. Nobody in my position would not have fallen victim to the facial trickery of this man. He can change as easily as the leopard gecko changes her skin.
He has taken his trickery to the governance of Abia State and sowed the seed of rancour and hatred among our once-united people. The level of harm he has done to the state is such that it will take another eight years of hard work to remedy. The people have been cowed into submission and nobody dare utter a word against the man or his son. His son traverses every nook and cranny of the state like a colossus. In fact, he is the one that determines how the state is governed and who gets what. All the security apparatuses are seemingly under his control. And he uses them as he so wishes. I find this very debasing. That was why I drew the attention of the President and the security chiefs to what is happening in Abia State.
The governor and his son tell whoever cares to listen that they are in control of the army, the police, the navy, the air force and the directorate of state services. Who are they deceiving? They cannot fool all Abians at the same time. These military institutions cannot be cajoled by anybody, because they are professionally organised and can easily smell mischief.
The government of Abia State thrives on name-dropping. The governor goes about telling people how close he is to the President and his wife. He also tells his brother-governors that the wife of the President is his sister. Hiding under the cover of these people, they perpetrate all kinds of heinous things against the innocent and unsuspecting members of the public.
Feelers reaching me indicate that they are already hoping to use the security agencies, as was the case in the past, to intimidate people and do whatever they like in the forthcoming elections. This to me is wishful thinking. I wish to remind them that never again will our people condone such illegality in our land. Our people have suffered enough and are ready to take their destiny in their own hands. The era has passed when they watched, while their votes were being stolen. We will defend our votes with the last drop of our blood. This is the proper thing to do. Nigeria’s democracy has come to stay. As far as we are concerned, the President has set the standard for future elections with what had transpired in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun states. It will be antithetical to the reform agenda of Mr. President for anybody to think it would be business as usual.
As I wrote this column, the government of Abia State under the watch of Theodore Orji was using its terror-agents to unleash mayhem in the state. They go about hunting and hounding the opposition. Just last weekend, the convoy of a serving Senator from the state, Nkechi Nworgu, was attacked by hoodlums led by the governor’s thugs under the supervision of one Ginger from Isiala-Ngwa North. The thugs blocked her convoy from passing through their territory. Senator Nworgu is also a bona fide daughter of Ngwaland and comes from Osisioma Ngwa Local Government Area. Her horrible experience is what every opposition-politician in the state experiences on a daily basis.
I wish to let the governor know that no amount of name calling or intimidation will deter me from standing up for what is right. He can go about deceiving the people and labelling projects he did not do as his, all that will not obfuscate the truth. It is not in doubt that my administration was the one that did all the major roads in Aba, which he has refused to maintain. We did the 40 km-Obehie-Azumini Road, Lomara-Leru Road, Nkporo-Item Road, Igbere- Bende Road, Alayi-Nkporo Road, and numerous other roads across the state. We built three housing estates in Umuahia, Aba and Ubakala. We also built the commissioners’ quarters and other edifices. Shamelessly, he claims he did them. This shows how terrible the man is. Three blocks of mansion his administration has been erecting within the premises of the Commissioners’ Quarters are yet to be completed since they were started three years ago.
I will take out time to address some of these projects and other extant issues to put a lie to all the gibberish the man is dishing out to the public, supported by some of our prominent citizens that have chosen to defend the indefensible and basking in infamy with a man they are fully aware whose time is nigh.
I wonder why Governor Orji did not see me as a bad man all these years until now he has got all he wanted from me. If God had not used me and other well-meaning Abians to make him governor, who would have known him for what he is today? He goes about bragging, boasting and intimidating innocent people, forgetting that it is the same people that made him governor and he is accountable to them at the end of his tenure.
I call on President Jonathan to institute a special panel to verify the authenticity or otherwise of these allegations. That is the only time our people will breathe fresh air of relief.
I commend Chief Arthur Eze again for his statesmanship and candour and for taking the bull by the horns.
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