OPINION

Abia & Gov. Orji’s incessant affront

By Odimegwu Onwumere

Some people have the ability to learn from experience while others do not have. The latter does not make human existence unique. It is not remarkable. Such makes the world to retrogress. And this is what has been playing on in Abia State.

But Governor Theodore Orji and his  bootlickers called aides would ever comment to the contrary thereby deceiving neophyte-observers of the political games they have been

playing in that once “God’s Own State” now turned to “Goons’ Own

State”.

A fortnight, one of the Orji’s aides spoke in an interview of how the

governor has ‘restored the dignity’ of the Abia person, but one cannot

nominate a place where the ‘dignity’ is restored. This is evident that

the government is using propaganda as its vital tool for governance,

forgetting that no government has ever survived on propaganda. The

Orji-led government of Abia State is living on such now, but

definitely it has shown that it cannot survive on a platter of good

governance devoid of the art of propaganda.

The rude side of this propaganda which the Orjis in the Abia State

Government have been hatching un-relentlessly is their nasty

disposition in churlishing the predecessor of Governor Orji of which

one cannot examine their actions and understand what they are bent on

achieving with such crass media brouhahas. It is therefore essential

to note that the futility-war the Orjis have waged against the

immediate past governor of the state lacks substance and do not hold

any water, as the person in question wields political power that spans

beyond and across the Orjis’ marooned political exhibitions.

Governor Orji cannot be talking about having dignity when the welfare

of the Abia people he was supposed to add value to is in shambles,

therefore making the future of that state to be bleak. This is

annoying because, as they say, Governor Orji was of the Civil Service

before he became governor. Imagine a man who was once a permanent

secretary ruling Abia State like one who has not heard about the

tenets of leadership before. He has further aided critics to question

how he got to that position of a permanent secretary because his body

language so far has proved that he was not competently qualified for

the aplomb job.

Dignity is not in name but in work. It is the good work that a person

has done that compels people to see him as a man of dignity.

Notwithstanding, this is not applicable to Orji, both in name and in

deed, he is a light featherweight. Ask the Orjis one project they have

completed in Abia State, they list frivolities. They will mention Umuahia Master Plan, Aba Master Plan, and all other poppycock they have been exhibiting in Abia State and call it good governance.

A man like Governor Orji who they say was a permanent secretary is

supposed to make Abia State functional, but the obverse has been the

case. And this is the bane of the patriotic Abia people. For example,

where is the N1 billion grants for youth agriculture? The Orjis would

use the flood that took over some towns and villages in Nigeria as an

excuse whereas Abia State was not a witness, or how they have

disbursed the ‘N1B’ to the youths who were certified by their various

local governments and traditional rulers for farming. Hooey! What

about the much-touted and hyped monorail project? As if that was not

enough, they would tell whoever that cares to listen of how Orji pays

out N2.5 billion to civil servants as salaries. They know how to draw

pity to their government of how less than N1billion is left for them

every month. This is an insult!

It is sad that Abia State fell in the hands of kidnappers of good

governance; where the governor’s wife has been building houses for

people christened underprivileged people, and one is poised to ask

where she got the money from and what her occupation is. This is what

the state has become, and the aides are competing for who issues out

the longest press briefs on matters bothering to the governor. The

cheerless side of their charade is the incessant rudeness they show

against the immediate past governor of the state. This habit however

shows that there is perhaps something that is eating the fabrics of

the Orjis in government that they don’t want to say. Albeit, the

masses will know in due course!

It is lacks judgment by any aide serving Governor Orji-led government

of Abia State not to know that down deep Orji’s heart he feels guilty

of how he betrayed the finger that fed him with abusive excuses as

reason, when what the Abia people have gotten as governance is

intimidation and unquantifiable taxations of the residents in a place

like Aba and sundry. The sycophants do not realize that nothing lasts

forever and that very soon Orji-led government will be but a history.

No doubt, Orji and his aides’ approach to things are uncivilized,

makeshift and narrow-minded, with their disastrous government that has

already crashed in the abyss. Those aides of Orji that are writing

deconstructive garbage against the immediate past governor of Abia

State will write against their today paymaster Governor Orji by

tommorow. It is a promise. What goes around comes around.

Odimegwu Onwumere, Poet/Author is the Cordinator, Concerned

Non-Indigenes in Rivers State (CONIRIV).