Alex Abia APGA And The Politics Of Change

When recently we read the news about the treatment the PDP governorship candidate in Abia state received from members of the public at a campaign event in Aba and again in Amachara-Umuahia , where he was booed and asked to leave town, many of us resident here in the United States could not contain our joy and excitement at this recent turn of events.

These two singular acts were in our opinion the ultimate expression of the people's resolve in saying to T A Orji and his puppet candidate that 'Enough is Enough”,that they will no longer sit back and accept the imposition of another handpicked governor in Abia.

Here in the United States, if a candidate is so publicly rejected and humiliated by a cross section of the voting public, that candidate may seriously consider withdrawing from the race. Not that we expect DrIkpeazu to do so by any stretch of imagination, being a Nigerian politician, but at least we can take comfort in the fact these acts of displeasure and insult, in and by themselves sends a clear message to the PDP on what awaits them on election day. It is our wish that this will be a recurring exercise at every Ikpeazu campaign event all over the state. We will therefore not hesitate in calling on the youths in the various communities in the state to engage in a sustained effort of booing the Ikpeazuat every campaign rally .Further more as a symbolic show of rejection we call on all Abia traditional rulers who received car gifts (KIA Model Vans) from Ochendo to return those cars back to the governor. By so doing they will not only be reclaiming their honor , respect and dignity of office but also show their solidarity with their colleagues in Imo state who did same recently. They will be lending credence to a statement by the late Martin Luther King when he said “non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral responsibility as cooperating with good”. To accept and keep those gifts as well as other financial incentives is not only repugnant but criminal as they are gifts purchased with stolen money from the state's coffers.

To those who have received or willing to accept “Stomach Infrastructure” as I am told it is called in the form of rice and other food items, I ask the question , where is your dignity and sense of self respect? Have you not realized after 16 years of mismanagement and failure that voting for the wrong candidate has consequences? How can you explain to a child whose schooling is interrupted by teachers strike action due to non-payment of salaries that it was the price he/she had to pay for the rice they ate? We who are in the United States and all over Europe , are depending on you ,our folks back home to help us bring about change in Abia state since we cannot come home to vote as much as we would love to do so.But here is something we can do. The thousands of us who are here in diaspora can make calls to our parents and relatives back home. If everyone of us make 10-15 calls to friends and family members who receive regular financial assistance from us , that could mean 10-15,000 votes for Alex Otti.

We need a new kind of leadership in Abia State. We need a leader who has earned the mandate of the people because he is the collective choice of the electorate. We must make a change in this election, for as Ibo's we have had our fair share of unprincipled, selfish elitist, cocktail sipping sellouts who parade themselves as our leaders. We need a new leadership that must earn our sacred trust, which in my opinion is the basis for a democratic society. Unfortunately in Abia that trust for many years was perpetually vulnerable to the tyrannical and kleptomaniac tendencies of the out-going governor.

It is time to form a new kind of partnership. A partnership with Alex Otti, whose leadership genius is revealing not only by his achievements in the banking industry but through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that has enabled him to form and cultivate friendships, partnerships and relationships in the financial world. Relationships which I presume will come very handy when he becomes our governor. If the primary responsibility of a banker is to keep your money safe, who then will you trust to keep Abia states money safe? An accomplished ex-banker or the failed head of a sanitation agency who failed miserable in his job of keeping the state clean.

DrOtti's election as governor will mark the age of definition. A definition of a new order, a new way of doing things with regards to politics , financial ethics and prudence. With his election I can imagine the balcony of heaven filled with angels with their thumbs raised up in affirmation of the manifestation of his destiny and God's will .With his victory the citizens of Abia will be able to finally rip off the bandages of their past electoral wounds, so they can air out and begin to heal. A healing period that will give way to the exchange of shared memories-memories shaped by a common past. A past that was a personification of evil and graft in the person of Ochendo. A past we will all want and which we will forget with time and which in itself will be a springboard to a future. A future of progress and unity.A future that will help cloud our memories of the trauma of the past administration. An administration which even among those who support it today would someday by a consensus of scholarship be recorded as the worst in the history of Nigeria's modern day politics.

As Abraham Lincoln once asserted and it holds true today “the fundamental test of democracy is the capacity to elevate the condition of men, to lift artificial weights from all shoulders and to clear the paths of laudable pursuits for all”. It is my hope that Alex Otti's election will hold these words as self- evident that both government and the people can form a common bond that will enable the populace embark on laudable pursuits in their personal lives and by so doing help the administration achieve its own goals. As the election date draws near, I can see hope and change in the horizon. The Mohawk Indians have a popular saying “you cannot see the future with tears in your eyes”. It is time for Abia people to wipe away the tears from their eyes so they can clearly see the future that awaits them come February 2015.

To APGA and Otti's campaign, those of us in diaspora say ,so far so good. We are highly impressed by the quality of his campaign, his efforts and his tenacity. We celebrate his choice of a female running mate in the person of DrEme, for it shows confidence and appreciation of the role our women could play in the new political dispensation. We applaud him for taking the plunge into politics, knowing what a difficult proposition it was going to be. Which reminds me that great things never come from a comfort zone. We urge him to stay strong and to ignore all nay sayers and critics,bearing in mind that when you are a giraffe and you are getting criticisms from the turtle, the turtle's opinion are coming from his level which is way beneath you and that you will endanger your position if you lower your perspective, hence you cannot explain to the turtle a giraffe's way of doing things .DrOtti should act as a giraffe and ignore the verbal attacks and criticisms from his opponents as criticisms and such acts of vandalism, as tearing up APGA campaign posters will increase as they become more desperate.He should rather keep their eyes on the price as it is within reach.

In all my years of living here in the United States I have never seen this level of support and enthusiasm for a candidate in a Nigerian election such as it is for Alex Otti. It is no gain saying to state that support for his campaign cuts across every Ibo community here . We have people from Imo, Anambra ,Enugu states etc publicly and on facebook pages expressing their support for him. Most like me have never met him. Some ,including yours truly have turned their facebook pages into campaign billboards for DrOtti. Most prominent is one SamualIgweObinna , an Umauahia native who is resident in London. A friend of mine Chuck Asoluka from Owerri in Imo State is a one man campaign team here in the state of New jersey. According to him , anyone who promises to fix the roads in Aba is his guy. Such is the level of support Alex Otti's campaign has generated and it is our collective hope that he wins. We support him because we believe in him and we hope that the voters back home will not fail us. Like the saying goes “if you keep being what you have always been. If you keep doing what you have always done, nothing changes unless you make a change”. In this election, making a change we must. After voting we must wait or stay behind and witness the vote counting exercise so as to make sure Alex Otti is not rigged out of victory. If our brothers in Imo, Ekiti and Anambra states could do so in the last elections, we in Abia can do the same.We must be vigilant during the vote counting. In conclusion i call on all Abia residents in diaspora to endeavor to join our facebook page, “ABIA USA DIAPORA FOR ALEX OTTI 2015 “ and together we will all celebrate his victory on election day.

NNANNA IJOMAH. BSc,BSN,MA
NnannaIjomah a former Personal Assistant
to the late EmekaOjukwu teaches Political Science in New York