Some persons have the ability to learn from experience while others do not have. The later 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 evidence 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 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). Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com
