GOV. T.A ORJI AND HIS UKWA/NGWA PROJECT

Please, permit me to start this article by saying that I'm in Imo State and I'm an indigene of the state, but have been hearing about the slapdash of echoes of mis-governance of Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji of Abia State.

Amongst the rackets he had made in the last past month the one that caught my attention was his comment that 'power must shift to Ukwa/Ngwa people of the state'. I'm not against that. What I may be against is the skill and dexterity with which the governor shows such a comment as if Nigeria is under a fiefdom setting.

Typical Gov. Orji is what Karen Joy Fowler says in The Jane Austen Book Club: In the feudal fiefdom of school, rank was determined early. You could change your hair and clothes. You could, having learned your lesson, not write a paper on Julius Caesar entirely in iambic pentameter or you could not tell anyone if you did. You could switch to contact lenses, compensate for your braininess by not doing your homework. Every boy in school could grow twelve inches. The sun could go fucking nova. And you'd still be the same grotesque you'd always been.

As the echoes of tears reverberate from around Abia State, I can say that the governor is that person in the fiefdom setting that always shows off his imbecilic braininess, but has refused to do his homework. The governor is like an owner of the house who arrived late and said that his time is precious to the time of his guest that is waiting for him at home.

There was no how the governor could tell the world that he had to decide from where the next governor of Abia State should come from. For me, I think the governor is being myopic and selfish in his comment that come May 29, 2015, 'power must shift to Ukwa/Ngwa people of the state'.

What I think Governor Orji should be talking about without mincing words and exchanging it with action is to tell and aswell show to the people that he can work. And not from where the next governor of the state after his tenure would come from. However, this agenda could be the sole plan of the governor, because he had said in a forum: There is no going back on the plans to cede power to Ukwa/Ngwa people.

My close view about Gov. Orji is that he behaves like a writer his publisher does not have his mailing address, because the writer had one or two things to hide. Governor Orji has been leading Abia State in his own way that does not benefit the entire people and is just showing off with the comment of where the next governor of the state is going to come from and where not.

In my estimation, it is not either or that the next governor comes from the Ukwa/Ngwa area that the people of Abia State would feel and have a sense of belonging, but when the governor gives the people and show them the true meaning of democracy and not the unilateral government that the people are frowning at he has been sitting on.

Talking about where he feels the next governor should come from and where not is a different thing from the development that the people are direful in need of. Gov. Orji thinks this that he can use words to change Abia State, but this is not true of how a democratic government works. The moment that people want him to capture, is now that he is governor and not about who succeeds him or not.

He wants people to support the Ukwa/Ngwa governorship awareness as if this is the projects that the people want to see being executed in the state in the areas of road, security, sanitation and sundry. While he sees who comes from the Ukwa/Ngwa area to mount the saddle of leadership in 2015, the proper thing people feel he should do is to bring peace in the minds of people by going to work on projects that can affect the people positively, not the Ukwa/Ngwa project that he is now carrying on his shoulder as if it's why the people elected him in the first place.

The way I see the Abia people under this governor, they would not mind losing Ukwa/Ngwa in 2015, since it can be seen that it is the only project that is dear to the governor. I can see that whoever the governor supports would lose the election of 2015 as I'm seeing that the governor is already losing half way. The governor had already vanished, but is always looking for relevance that is elusive from him.

I hope that many people laughed, not only those from Abia State, when Gov. T.A Orji in one occasion said: 'I prayed God to guide me and I decided that for fairness and equity, it will be good for an Ukwa/Ngwa person to be the next governor. You did not lobby me; I did not discuss with any person, only God. This is what I feel God said I should say and do; I think that it is the fairest thing to do. When I did it, I discovered that it is the in-thing. If you go to Enugu, Ebonyi, Cross River, and Akwa Ibom, it is the same. Abia State has come of age; it is now age of reasoning not intimidation.'

In that aspect, I will summarize this article by quoting Karen Joy Fowler and hope that both the governor and the people will understand that Abia State is like 'marriage' under Gov. T.A Orji. Fowler says: Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to being married. Just the same things over and over again. Same fights, same friends, same things you do on a Saturday. The repetition would start to get to me.

Written By Rubby Obinna