Orji Won, But A Defeated Governor
The news is today all over the world that the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Abia State, have withdrawn the petition it filed at the Abia State Governorship Election Tribunal challenging the election of Governor Theodore Orji, who polled 641,158 votes to defeat APGA candidate, Reagan Ufomba, who got 49,421 votes in the gubernatorial elections. In what was termed the petitioner's “no longer interested in pursuing the matter”, APGA announced the withdrawal through its lawyer, Mr. Chukwuemeka Nwachukwu, who informed the tribunal of the party's intention to withdraw the petition.
How this decision is going to translate into more dividends of democracy in Abia State is what only the APGA knows. Let us believe that this decision will make our people of Abia State free from poverty and a calamitous environment. Let us believe in absentia that the government APGA is now supporting is going to empower the people of Abia State, provide them with the basic amenities, which the government there is yet to supply them with, after four years. Abia State needs to be decent, and its people enjoy decency. But it is very unfortunate that they now see good roads, water, electricity and so on, on the pages of the newspapers, as they are in other states, where government works. When would life be easier for them?
We have heard Chief Theodore Orji talked about the specific projects he had carried in that state. There could be many of them, but how many of them were carried out sophisticated and completed. Constructing and reconstructing of roads is one project we do not know if Orji is afraid of to embark in that state. For example, see Aba and cry.
Many of the industries in Abia are obsolete. Those that have been said are revived, how operational are they? Let us not talk about un-employment to spare someone from vomiting. Let us agree that security have been gotten in the state, but are people not still being killed and kidnapped by “unknown gun men” now and them?
It is very sad that the state has human resources, but government presence is an aberration of governance owing to overdue environmental decadence. The presence of soldiers, policemen and all other security agencies were ones characterised as being used against the people in guise that they are protecting the lives and property in the state. This was ultra-sustained during the recently passed election, where armed uniformed men were deployed everywhere and they were allegedly to have intimidated people. Read your newspapers.
Talking about health in Abia State is another fraud. How could a government that has not cleaned up its environment talk about sustaining the giant strides it has also made in terms of health? Take a walk round Aba for instance and pity man for the wickedness of his fellow man. Abians can never be healthy if they continue to live in dirty surroundings, no matter the number of diagnostic centres and health centres built there to ensure that the people are healthy. Imagine that in the whole of Aba, there are only six compactors. Let us not delve into the educational system there, to spare someone from running stomach.
Orji took excuses in his incapacitation of building Abia State in his past administration on spending three years in court. And we wonder if he was in the prison for those three years and could not call the shots of what to do or what not to do. Anyway, Ndiigbo always say that it is only a lazy child that calls for the rain to fall during farming days. Orji has started giving excuses again that “the people who lost elections have all gone to the tribunal, and this is the beginning.”
We wonder how the presence of the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court would be terrifying Orji, whenever his opponents go there. We don't see anyone going to court as a distraction except that the person that was taken to the court was imprisoned. And he could not work from the prison.
It is warranted that people should go to court than taking laws into their hands. Orji will soon tell us that Osisikankwu was also a distraction, if he has not told us already. This was a common criminal Orji-led government could not trap down upon his nefarious activities in that state not until there was a federal might present that ousted Osisikankwu. Maybe, the federal government should as well tell Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State to go to Abia and help Orji to develop the underdeveloped Abia State. When would this Orji outgrow “don't be silly”?
There is nobody distracting Orji in developing Abia. Only insincerity is distracting him. How could a governor say that he does not need distraction because people went to the court? Would he be attracted to work when people distract him with stone? His warning that those who lost in the elections should come and join hands with him is a plea of a defeated governor.
Odimegwu Onwumere, Poet/Author, Media/Writing Consultant and Motivator, is the Founder of Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), Rivers State. Mobile: +2348032552855, +2348057778358. Email: [email protected]