With Over N100B Annually Gov. Orji Can’t Provide Job Opportunities?

Phony claim is one unattractive phenomenon that has been established in the country by persons with distasteful character, which invariably contributes to the lackluster situation, the citizens have found themselves.

This scenery of making bogus claims where none perhaps exists is one feature that can be seen is identical with the Abia State Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji. And the result is the lackadaisical authority and surroundings that the citizens of the state were saying that they had come to endure in the name of democracy.

Just recently, the governor audaciously informed the world that he would make sure that his 'transformation agenda' for the state is completed before he leaves office in 2015, even though that he had accepted that about 80% of the populations in the state are jobless.

Although, Gov. Orji is good at giving youths from the state Keke and Taxis to ride as forms of empowerment that his government can provide. He, however, had capped it up before newsmen recently by accepting that he lacks the foresight to create job opportunities for Abia people.

But he had although spoken from the sides of his mouth that he had unlimited projects for the youths and he was taking them in series.

In an interview with a national paper April 05 2014, the governor brazenly said: "Employment by government is not easy because the fund is not there. So, providing employment through government agencies like the civil service is very limited. A lot of people are unemployed; if you go through government agencies, it will only take a limited number of youths but then they have to live and they have to move forward."

Still dragging his legs from the mud he had dipped them in, Nigerians know that Gov. Orji as a connoisseur in giving pretexts for not responding to his official duties. It is on record that as at 2012, the state government received the sum of about N444.56million in January 2011, and N343.61million in the same corresponding period of 2010.

This statistics was from the Finance Ministry, Distribution of Revenue Allocation to FGN by Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC.

During this period, the governor made comments that the government was not performing due to the restiveness that characterised the state, which was led by one Osisikankwu who was said, had been killed when soldiers were deployed to the state to quell the nuisance of Osisikankwu and his group of gangsters.

There was another claim that pipeline vandalism and oil deft contributed in setting back the activities in the state. Known for his tedious ability, Gov. Orji had told newsmen that he would perform wonders if only revenue allocations were done evenhandedly and based on crude manufacture; the state will have more funds at its dumping to accomplish development projects to enhance community and state economies, sources confirmed.

While Gov. Orji is still using feint perhaps in order to mislead the suspecting and unsuspecting peoples of Abia State and, by extension the entire Nigerian populace, it would behoove the masses to note that Abia State is one state affirmed in the country that has refused to manage its huge Federal Allocation amounting to N54b annually; Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) estimated at N48b naira annually and, N64b collected from the Federal account between January and December 2012. This money has been collected by the Abia State government.

Analysts have said that this implies that the state has garnered more money in the year 2013 to 2014. Such allocations as Excess Crude Account, Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P), Domestic Crude Account, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) refund and Foreign exchange discrepancies for oil producing states, are not accounted for.

In the year 2012, accounts by Vanguard, August 07 are that the primary objective of the Abia State Oil Producing Areas Commission, ASOPDEC, was to assuage the anguish of the oil producing communities and Abia State in general. Yet, there has not been significant thing to show for the noisy commission, upon that oil was said to have been discovered in Abia State in profitable quantity in 1958 in Owaza community of the state.

An account by one ASOPADEC Chairman, Mr. Samuel Nwogu, had revealed: “The Commission derives its funding from the 13 per cent derivation. If Abia State gets 13 per cent, the law permits the state government to give ASOPADEC 30 per cent of the derivation fund. So it is with this 30 per cent from the derivation fund that the Commission did all we have achieved since 2010. From inception, the governor directed the Ministry of Finance to release our funds as at when due because it is statutory.”

It is certain today that the governor is boasting of making kidnapping disappeared in the state. He had told newsmen that his critics and political opponents thought that it would not be easy. What is amiss is that with the skill and level the governor said that he had made kidnapping disappeared from the state; he could not make unemployment to disappear from the state as well, even upon the huge funds that the state grabs monthly and annually.

Odimegwu Onwumere, a Poet/Writer, writes from Rivers State.

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