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-sing
ers
. 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 news
paper in Nigeria without finding a disheart
ening story about Abia State. It is needless
recounting some of the purulent and gory
tales oozing out of our ill-fated state, be
cause 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 lib
eration 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-gene
rated
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 misadministrati on.
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, po
litical 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 thelack of basic amenities such as water,electricity, roads, etc across the state. In terestingly, 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 al
ways 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 of
fice as governor – that the people were not
happy with his performance. I also advised
him to stop taking loans indiscriminatel y
from banks as that would be detrimental to
his administration on the long run. Instead
of taking my advice in good faith and mak
ing 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
misadministrati
on 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-gene
rated 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 admin
istration s 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 pre
pared 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 for
gotten 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
