My stewardship as Abia governor (1999-2007) – 6

(ACHIEVEMENTS IN PUBLIC UTILITIES)

In the past two editions of this column I meticulously addressed the major cause of the rift between Governor Theodore Orji and myself. I decided to break the ice on the issue to put to rest speculations by the rumour mills about the real cause of the disagreement between us. In truth, the governor cannot deny the fact that he was the major cause of the rift and, probably too, the major beneficiary, so to speak. If he is not the major beneficiary, or at least if he hadn’t intended so, why did he not find it expedient to tell the whole world why he declared a total ‘war’ against me, mem­bers of my family and anybody related to me one way or another?

From the reasons I had given in the past five editions of this column it could easily be seen that the governor deliberately and in­geniously invented the rift to divert attention from his inefficiencies and make a scapegoat of me in the milieu. I am yet to be told by the governor if he has any other reason for hat­ing me with such venom, even to the point of morbidity.

Again, the governor has not told the world why he has shamelessly laid claims to projects he did not do, claiming to have done them with such glee and fanfare. This, to me, is the height of mundaneness and obnoxiousness. Where in a decent society could a serving governor, who swore to the oath of allegiance, so fraudulently display the accomplishments of another administration as his? It is only in a state like Abia could such oddity be condoned and glorified!

I have searched my conscience and I’m yet to see anything I had done to deserve the kind of treatment Theodore Orji has meted out to me. Was my sin choosing him as my succes­sor or standing solidly behind him when it seemed all hope had been lost? Something in me tells me that the governor is acting under the influence of something ungodly. I have reached this conclusion because nobody in his or her right senses would have done what the governor had done to me.

Come to think of it: why have all the people who distanced themselves from our adminis­tration from 1999 to 2007 found safe haven in Theodore Orji’s administration? These were the same men who vowed never to see us suc­ceed. They put clogs in the wheel of progress and did other atrocious things to make us fail. But their plots fell flat, because we placed all our hope and trust in the Lord.

Why has Theodore Orji submitted himself to be manipulated by satanic forces? His ac­tions and utterances smacked of godlessness and Christlessness. He professes to be a Chris­tian and holds Christian gatherings from time to time yet bears grudges and keeps malice.

The simple conclusion I can draw from his irrational behaviour is this: he is under the in­fluence of forces more powerful than him. It is only somebody in this kind of state could do weird things as the governor has done since 2009: laying claims to projects he did not do and making conscious efforts to de­stroy somebody who helped him to become governor. It is often said that one good turn deserves another. Why is it different in the case between Theodore Orji and me? You see something is wrong somewhere.

Governor Theodore Orji, as I have always written, knows the truth and this truth will haunt him all the days of his life. Since he has decided to pay good for evil he will never have peace until he owns up to his misdeeds. He cannot claim ignorance of my positing. For the 8 years we worked together as governor and chief of staff respectively, I showed him friendship and love, culminating in his choice as my successor. To turn round to dance to a different tune when it mattered most is not only repulsive, but worse than the perfidious act of Brutus. I leave him to his conscience.

Let me state here the umpteenth time, that presiding over the administration of the affairs of Abia State was the most daunting task I have had to face all my life. The impact of the enormous work we did to develop the state in the face of scarce financial resources still tells on me till today. But I thank God for giv­ing us the energy and wisdom to do the much we had done to put a smile in the faces of our people. The last time our people experienced real governance was May 29, 2007 when we vacated office after 8 years of meritorious ser­vice to them.

I regret to state that since the emergence of Theodore Orji as governor our people have never experienced passionate leadership. All they have experienced is maladministration and ineptitude of leadership from their gover­nor. Instead of the governor working to better their lot he has spent scarce resources chasing shadow and building fiefdoms for himself and his generations yet unborn.

Ask an average Abian about the achieve­ments of our administration from May 1999 to May 2007 and they will reel them out with enthusiasm. Forget the naked lies the governor tells about his achievements, the people know the truth. There is no single mega-project on ground anywhere in the state the governor can boast of accomplishing. The so-called legacy projects are mere recycled projects – some of which were initiated by past administrations, especially our own administration. In my own estimation, the legacy projects are just white elephants designed by the governor to hood­wink unsuspecting members of the public in order to give some semblance of working. How much do the entire projects cost? Are their costs anywhere half of what the state has earned from the federation account, excluding internally generated revenue – all amounting close to a trillion naira since 2007?

What is the debt profile of Abia State since 2007 when we vacated the Paris Club? Recall that we inherited 168 million US dollars as debt in 1999. By the time our tenure ended in 2007 we had paid off the debt. Our ability to pay the debt was made possible by former President Oluseguin Obasanjo who directed the Federal Ministry of Finance to compulso­rily deduct the money from our monthly allo­cation as a way of punishing us for refusing to support his third term agenda. Today Gover­nor Theodore Orji has burdened the state with both local and foreign loans.

Was it not because I advised him to stop taking loans from banks if he was not ready to deploy them into meaningful ventures for the good of the people that partly caused Gover­nor Orji to revolt against me?

Those singing the praise of the governor are political jobbers, turncoats and charlatans, whose only pastime is bending the truth in order to extort money from him. Deep inside them they know the governor has not done anything to improve their lives or the lives of the majority of our people.

Having said that I will continue the sector by sector analysis of our administration’s per­formance in the eight years I presided over the state as governor this week. In the first three editions I enumerated our achievements in the educational, housing and infrastructural sectors. I will treat public utilities – a sector in which we recorded monumental successes and made reasonable impact on the lives of the people. Let me first of all place on record that the man who manned that vital sector, Hon. Arua Arunsi, currently represents Aro­chukwu/Ohafia Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. He can reveal how much energy, resources we spent to bring wa­ter and electricity to the innermost parts of our state.

I recall with nostalgia the magic we per­formed the first two weeks to make the dry taps in Umuahia and Aba run again. In the first phase of our integrated water programme we were able to rehabilitate four huge water schemes and drilled about 1000 boreholes in various communities and schools to alleviate their hardship. We purchased thousands of PVC pipes to replace burst ones at Umuahia and Aba water pipes networks. We also con­structed 12 meter-high 10,000 gallon steel tank for water reticulation to the Nnamdi Azikiwe Secretariat, Umuahia, House of As­sembly Complex, Customary Court, Women Skill Acquisition Centre, and Ministry of Sports and Social Development, including environs. We as well purchased and installed new generating sets, starters, sumo-pumps, alum dosing pumps for the gigantic Umuopa­ra River Intake, CKC Ariaria Water Scheme, Old Umuahia Water Scheme, etc. We also rehabilitated Itumbuzu, Elu-Ohafia, Ovim, Nnono, Mbawsi, Ariam, Apuanu Item, Afugi­ri, Ukwa, Afarata, Ogwe, Akwete, Umungwa, and Aba River Water Schemes.

All these are in addition to hundreds of boreholes drilled for communities and schools.

When we arrived in Umuahia on May 26 – three days to assumption of office as gover­nor – there was pitch darkness in the whole of Abia State. We also found out that Abia State was the only newly-created state without the mandatory 132/33KV substation or a higher and more acceptable rating of 330KV. This development made power supply epileptic, making the people groan hopelessly. We im­mediately made representation to the Federal Government on the situation. We followed this up with remedial measures to alleviate the plight of the people and drive industrial growth in the state.

The Umuahia-Uzuakoli-Abiriba high ten­sion line vandalized by hoodlums and which had been lying comatose for several months before we arrived received immediate atten­tion. Rural electrification, which formed a part of our rural integration programme received a boost through the provision of thousands of transformers to rural communities, including connecting many of them to the national grid.

Our overall focus was to complete aban­doned and vandalized electricity projects and commence new ones. As part of this goal we were able to accomplish the following pro­jects: rehabilitation of the vandalized 33KVA Abiriba-Igbere-Akara NEPA line; Ibinaukwu Igbere High Tension line; vandalized switch gear, D-Fuse at Etitiama/Abiriba Junction; vandalized Ozuitem line; and extension of electricity lines to Umuisi-Agbor, Eziama Communities, Umunevo, Ndiolumbe, Um­uekweghiesu, Obilohia Umuobia, Amokwe Item, border-towns of Umuro, Amuzu and Umumba; Mgboko Amairi, Amapu Ife, Og­bodinibe Umuodo, Umuopara, Owo- Asa, Ndi Uduma Awoke, Ututu Town, and Senior Science School, Alayi. Others were the con­struction of substations with 300 KVA trans­formers at Owaza, Obehie, Mgboko Itungwa, Agburike Isingwa, Umuezele, Ogbodiukwu, Umuopara, Asa Okpulor, Ariaria Main Mar­ket, Aba, and Akwete. There are many other electricity projects space could not allow me to name.

Let me throw yet another challenge to the governor: I would like him to name the elec­tricity projects embarked upon by his govern­ment since he became governor. The records are there for all to see that the governor has busied himself more with propaganda in­stead of settling down to work for our peo­ple. Though he has less than 8 months before he hands over to a successor, what has he to show for all the time and money he wasted misruling our people? How would he face up to the same people he chastised, harassed and tormented for 8 whole years?

I have asked these questions as the gover­nor has not shown any sign of retracing his steps or toeing the path of honour and recti­tude. Instead of remorse he has continued to exhibit irrational behavioural patterns akin to that of a drunken sailor. As the PDP primaries approach he has shown further signs of des­peration and anxiety. He has already started circumventing the rules guiding the conduct of governorship primaries, and entrenching his self-centred agenda long before the pri­maries begin. One of the contraptions he had committed was the influencing of the selec­tion of his cousin to head the governorship primaries committee – something that is alien to the PDP constitution. I wonder who told the governor that it is the prerogative of a state governor to appoint members of governorship primaries committee. It is purely the duty of the National Working Committee of the party to do so. This shows in unmistakable terms that the governor is not interested in rules and regulation, yet he is supposed to be the custo­dian of constitutionality and legality.

In any case, one truth the governor should embrace today is that time is fast running out for him. The Abia State he used to know is gradually moving faster than him. It will not be long before he is left in the lurch. The peo­ple, whom he had taken for granted all these years, are wiser now and ready to liberate themselves from his stranglehold.

Again, the era of manipulating security agencies, and gullible and vulnerable mem­bers of our party is over. The time has come when he will be asked to account for every­thing he had done in the past seven and half years.

I wish to state without any fear of contra­diction that I out-performed Chief Theodore Orji in office as governor. All he has achieved in almost 8 years as governor with over N600 billion he collected, excluding internally-gen­erated revenue, cannot match what I achieved in 8 years with just N108 billion. If he is against my positing then he should take up my earlier challenge to assemble the best five audit firms in the world to audit our two gov­ernments to see which performed better. I will pay 50% of the cost of the audit.

The best thing for him to do now is to have a rethink and allow peace to reign. If he thinks he can bamboozle everybody as he had done all these years then he is living in a Fool’s Paradise.