Strange things happen in Abia State where Chief Theodore Orji strides like the Lord of the Manor and carries himself with such haughtiness as if the state belongs to him and his family. He has refused to turn a new leaf despite all entreaties for him to do so. He prefers beating about the bush to accepting the wise counsels of concerned persons who have repeatedly drawn his attention to the perilous path he is treading. He sees nothing wrong in his reckless actions and utterances but prefers to pander to praise-singing and cult-worship.
Truth to him is like a bitter pill, which must be avoided at all costs. His best friends are those who massage his ego and sing his praise to high heavens; but those who criticize or advise him wisely have been demonized and left in the lurch.
Because he loves praise-singing he has surrounded himself with many praise-singers. Many of his so-called advisers instead of wasting their time and talents offering him useful advice on how to develop the state, which he will never accept in good faith, they have chosen to buy airtime in the state-owned broadcast station to sing his praise from morning till night every blessed day. You hardly hear any quality news from the station. All one hears on a daily basis, per second per second, is “Ochendo Global did this, Ochendo Global did that’, without anything on ground to show for it. It is like a circus display: the more you look the less you see – abracadabra.
There is no single day you open a newspaper in Nigeria without finding a disheartening story about Abia State. It is needless recounting some of the purulent and gory tales oozing out of our ill-fated state, because the list is endless. But one undeniable fact is that Abia State is steadily on the march to perdition. The only saving grace is that the so-called obnoxious Ochendo era will end soon. It is just a matter of two months before the people sing the real liberation song.
When I witness what is happening in Abia State and the decrepit level it has sunk in the past 8 years my heart is melancholic. The level of corruption the state has witnessed under Governor Orji is mindboggling and indescribably embarrassing. Imagine a state that has earned an average of N5 billion monthly, excluding internally-generated revenue, since 2007, without anything tangible to show for it! The state is run like the private property of the governor and his family. They call the shots and decide who gets what. Does this translate to true democracy?
The people of Abia State constantly live in fear: nobody dares to speak out or he will face the music in the hands of the governor’s ruthless thugs or those of his ‘mighty’ son – seen everywhere he goes as the de facto governor. If anybody disputes this position let him now tell me why the governor, despite his abysmal performance, should have the effrontery to offer himself up for Senate and his son, House of Assembly. They should have completed the circle by offering his wife the seat to the Umuahia/Ikwuano Federal Constituency. What a shame!
The selfishness of Governor Orji and his ambition are pathologically vaulting. Everything he thinks about is himself and his family. While the state is the goose that lays the golden eggs, the people are his footstools. And there is no end in sight to his insensitivity and misadministration.
I receive hundreds of text messages every week from some of our agonized people back home in Abia State, complaining about the draconian and uncaring administration of the governor. They ask for solution, they cry for redemption. One of the text messages actually provoked me to write this piece. The writer complained about how her shop at the former Umuahia Main Market was demolished without the government offering her a lifeline. According to her, she has spent all her savings since the market was relocated to Obani, outskirts of Umuahia, because she was not allotted a shop in the new market. There are thousands of others like this woman whose shops were demolished, and up till today have not been given any replacement.
It is very sad that the stalls in the new market were shared out to the governor’s cronies, hangers-on, family members, political associates and friends, who in turn resold them at exorbitant prices. This is why many of the displaced traders could not secure a space in the new market.
Another tragedy is that traders relocated to the new market and who were able to secure new shops idle away every day for lack of patronage. Many of them have closed shop and now stay at home, instead of spending the little money at their disposal transporting themselves to the new market, which is about 10 kilometers away.
Some of the texts also drew attention to the lack of basic amenities such as water, electricity, roads, etc across the state. Interestingly, a sizeable number of the texts came from the City of Aba, which is in a state of total collapse. When I was governor of the state from 1999 to 2007, our administration ensured that the city was well-catered to. We rehabilitated almost all the bad roads in the city and provided other amenities that made life pleasurable for the people. We were able to rebuild Aba despite our lean resources, because of its strategic importance as the economic livewire of the state.
I find it inexplicable that Governor Orji could allow Aba to degenerate to its present pitiful state, when his administration collects huge revenue from there in form of taxes. This is the height of wickedness!
Residents of Aba are very bitter and frustrated with the governor. They have always wanted a way to vent their anger for a very long time. So, what happened last Friday at the burial of our beloved Bishop Valentine Ezeonyia, where the governor was thoroughly embarrassed by the people of the city, was unfortunate and generally avoidable!
Probably, the governor underestimated the capacity of the people to react the way they did. He personally courted the wrath of the people and now is seeking a scapegoat in another person. To clone my phone number and purport a message to have been written by me apologizing to the governor over the incident of last Friday was a show of shame by the governor and his cohorts. Why should anybody clone my phone number to serve his self-centred agenda?
The cause of the rift between me and the governor was that I advised him to gear up and work for the people. I had told him pointblank in 2008 – after 12 months in office as governor – that the people were not happy with his performance. I also advised him to stop taking loans indiscriminately from banks as that would be detrimental to his administration on the long run. Instead of taking my advice in good faith and making amends he opted to antagonize me.
Thereafter, he nicknamed himself ‘Ochendo Global’ and started reveling in debauchery. His acolytes and band of praise-singers sweet-talk him and this makes his head swell. His sense of reasoning, having been beclouded by vainglory, leaves him power-drunk and drenched with myopia. His actions in turn become anti-people and irrational. This is the lot of the man in the saddle in Abia State.
It is on record that since we went our separate ways I have taken the back seat and allowed him to run the show as he so desires. But one thing I have vowed not to do is to see evil and not speak up against it. So long I have breath in me I will continue to condemn evil in whatever ramification it rears its ugly head.
Our elders and other stakeholders have unfortunately lost their manhood. They prefer to gallivant with the governor for the crumbs from his table. Some of them are captains of industry, retired military men, and intellectuals who should ordinarily show exemplary leadership to the young ones. The misadministration of Abia State under the watch of the governor has been bolstered by the tacit support he gets from these shameless people. Today Abia State is a Pariah State, despised by many.
There is nothing anywhere in the state to show the true presence of government. What greet a first-time visitor to the state are mountainous heaps of refuse, dilapidated roads, and poverty written in the faces of the people. There is no state capital in Nigeria, except Umuahia, that does not wear a new look. When the attention of the governor is drawn to the developmental strides made by neighbouring states such as Akwa Ibom State he cites disparity in federal allocation collectible by the two states as a reason. Nobody compares Abia State to Akwa Ibom, but at least there should be signs of government presence in Abia State based on what it has collected so far from Abuja.
Conservatively, Abia State has received close to a trillion naira from the federation account and internally-generated revenue since 2007. Despite this huge sum received the state is still very poor and backward. The only evidence of development was the accomplishments recorded by the administrations of Sam Mbakwe and Orji Kalu. Where then has all the money gone?
Business Mogul Arthur Eze visited Abia State on the invitation of the governor recently and left a very sad man. What he said about the poor state of infrastructure in the state is in the public domain. Unfortunately, in spite of the berating by Dr. Eze the governor has carried on as usual. And this makes him a very incorrigible person. What on earth would cause a governor to continue in his evil ways when he has the opportunity to repent? If somebody had told me in 1999 that Chief Theodore Orji was going to behave in the manner he does at present I would not have believed him.
I trusted him with the destiny of Abia State by supporting him to become governor, not knowing that the mien he exhibited throughout the period he served as my chief of staff was fake and pretentious. You the reader may not appreciate what I am saying until you have encountered this sly man. He laughs with you but deep in his heart he harbours evil.
For Governor Orji, misrule, corruption and greed are the same thing and ten pence. He cannot spot any difference among them. For if he could spot the difference then he would know that they are evils and should be avoided. There is no person in Abia State who has not tasted the bitter pill served by the governor and his family. From the poor to the mighty, the powerful to the weak, it is the same tales of woes.
The people cry daily for redemption. They pray ceaseless that the burden placed upon them by the misdeeds of the governor be taken away by God without further delay. Anger and frustration have enveloped our people. They have sworn never to have any dealings with the governor or his family again. Even among the kinsmen of the governor the story is the same. They also want change. They allege that their son has forsaken them and has not done anything to better their lot since he assumed the office of governor.
The anti-Theodore Orji sentiments have been on geometric rise, particularly after the controversial PDP primaries in which he foisted himself and his son on the party as their senatorial and House of Assembly candidates respectively. It is not an exaggeration to state that from what is on ground there is no way the governor could win any election anywhere in Abia State again. The people, whom he has taken for a ride, are ready to pay him back in his own coin.
I challenge anybody in doubt to undertake a tour of Abia State to feel the pulse of the people. A few persons who profit from the governor’s purposeless leadership may run ring round him, prodding him to go on with his recklessness and insensitivity – but that will not avert the judgement of the people that is about to befall him. I know he still recalls what I always told him while serving as my chief of staff – that evil has an expiry date. Whatever anyone does in life – good or bad, right or wrong – has a reward.
For Governor Orji he has wasted all the goodwill he had, including the opportunity to worm him back into the masses’ hearts. The only worry I have is the liabilities he is going to leave behind as he races out of Government House Umuahia come May 29. I am aware that the level of indebtedness of his government to the banks, different categories of workers, pensioners, and contractors is frightening. This was exactly what our administration avoided as we prepared to leave office in 2007. We ensured that we left no debts – local or foreign – so that the incoming administration would not be bogged down by carry-over liabilities.
Lest we forget: I threw a challenge to Governor Orji last year for us to seek the services of the best audit firm in the world to audit the accounts of our governments to see who among us has misappropriated and plundered the financial resources of our beloved state. I even offered to defray the cost of the audit whenever it takes place. Sadly, six months after the challenge he is yet to respond to it. The simple deduction to make from his deliberate silence is that he has something to hide. Otherwise he would have accepted the challenge long ago.
In conclusion, I wish to state that I have nothing personal against Governor Orji, even though he has disappointed me and the good people of Abia State who believed in me and voted him into power while in prison. I have only drawn attention to the realities that await him, in case he has forgotten that after thunder comes calm. He should come down from his high horse and seek the face of God and reconcile himself with Him and the people before it becomes too late.
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