When a government keeps on lying to its populace, then the masses are indeed in trouble. The enthusiasm that greeted the election of Chief T.A. Orji as the Executive Governor of Abia State has greatly dissipated. There exists a high level of disenchantment with the government from every nook and cranny of the state by those who thought the man would have led them to Eldorado. Tales of sorrows permeate the state as people recount their ordeals. The dividends of good governance are indeed abysmal in the state. A governor who should be an epitome of integrity would resort to deception through cheap lies. T.A. Orji publicly lied to the Governor of Sokoto State, Aliyu Wammako, during his visit to Abia State before the eyes of the media. The governor took Wammako to Bende road just in front of Abia Tower off Aba road and publicly told him that his administration had transformed the major road from single carriage to dual carriage road up to Aro chukwu, whereas the dual carriage stopped at Isieke Ibeku Primary School less than 10 kilometres from the tower. Incidentally, it was done before the eyes of the journalists that are residents. They keep snapping and placing Secretariat Road on the pages of dailies, as if that is the only road that exists in Abia State. The roads in the state are deplorable and constitute death traps to users. The educational sector is obviously in comatose. Almost all the school buildings in the state are virtually dilapidated with leaky roofs, broken furniture, doors and windows. Some are completely abandoned, with heaps of refuse, human excreta and overgrown grasses a common sight. The teachers in the state are not motivated making life unbearable for them by backlogs of unpaid salaries and unfulfilled promises. Some youths in the state paid between N500 and N1,000 according to their educational qualifications for civil service forms, in anticipation of job offers promised by Ochendo, they were not employed. Is this not executive fraud? The booming businesses in Abia State are Keke (tricycle) riding, bus driving and prostitution. People have suddenly grown older than their ages while some have turned to drug addicts and drunks. The state is only interested in revenue collection, while they neglect their core responsibility of providing healthy environment among other social amenities to the people. Lest I forget, how did Ochendo spend the 2012 budget of N129.96 billion which he christened “Budget of Transformation” and claimed would stimulate economic growth and development in the state? And I ask, what is governance without transparency and accountability? T.A. Orji is very susceptible to gossip and media hypes. I ask, why did the Federal Government of Nigeria confer an award on Ochendo, a man who has been under fire from well-meaning stakeholders? A governor who epitomizes “misgover nance” by all standards, a tyrant at the helm of affairs. What exists in Abia State is nothing but the legacy hogwash from the governor. The governor is a “joker”. He is a governor whose name would permanently rest in Abia’s trashcan of history. Ochendo has exposed his inefficiency, ineptitude, lackluster, moribund ideas, unorganised and lacking focus in driving Abia to one of the well governed states. The truth of the matter is that T.A. Orji’s administration is suffering from acute dementia of ideas on the economic transformation of Abia State. Ochendo, where is your conscience? His government lives on lies, feeds on lies and operates on lies. The season of speech making, big titles, long convoys, rhapsody of lies, renting of crowds is here again. Abians must not repeat the Ochendo failure. But I ask, is Abia truly “GOD’S OWN STATE? I rest my case. Lest I forget, is Ikpeazu the miracle winner Abians are indeed expecting? Time will indeed tell. (Chukwudi Uruakpa/08052326076) …Who‘ll rescue Abia from Orji? When the above mail came in, I had to abridge the subject of my column today to accommodate the similar thought from one of my ardent readers. Everyone—Abians and non-Abians—are agreed on the irrevocable and unimpeachable fact that Governor Theodore Ahamefula Orji’s tenure in Abia State from May 29, 2007 to May 29, 2015 is a monumental disaster of incomparable magnitude in the history of mankind! The only good thing is that it is still redeemable if we end the procrastination in February 2015 when another governorship election will be held. I have always insisted on these pages and elsewhere that people should not blame Gov. Orji for his poor performance. The discredit goes to his benefactor and erstwhile chummy, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, who handed the baton to him on a silver platter against all resistances from multifarious blocs. It is very apparent that the outgoing governor was never prepared for the arduous role of presiding over a state like Abia with all its complexities and overwhelming expectations from a fas tidious group of Nigerians. As regards Dr. Kalu’s beneficence to this his nemesis, there is no point again crying over spilt milk. What we (all lovers of democracy and Abia State) need to do now is to ensure that Gov. Orji’s puppet, clone, lackey, stooge, son’s appointee, an establishment man, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 general elections, does not near the gate of Government House in Umuahia. If by any tragic stroke this happens, Abia would be doomed beyond redemption forever. How on earth can a man without any credible antecedent handpicked by the governor’s son, Chinedu, take over governance in the circumstantial disaster that we have found ourselves? If it were in a state like Katsina or Jigawa or Akwa Ibom or Delta where democracy dividends are testaments of good governance one could conveniently say that there isn’t much work to be done. Certainly not a raped and vandalized state like Abia. Ikpeazu is the General Manager of the state’s environmental agency in charge of Aba, yet the city is the dirtiest in the country! So, if a man could not handle something as basic as sanitary upkeep, what is the guarantee that he would be able to administer a whole state? HAPPY NEW YEAR…THE STRUGGLE TO LIBERATE ABIA STATE FROM AGENTS OF DARKNESS CONTINUES AS VICTORY IS DIVINED! As an aside: those wretched bags of rice the Abia State government gave to staff of the state university as Xmas gift should have been taken to charity homes—not a citadel. How many lecturers will share one bag going by the few bags dumped there? Even people in lower classes received far more than that last month. The university community in my state should take solace in the fact that the Greek gift is an offshoot of the poverty of governance in our notorious state!
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 10:15:01 +0000
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