Gov. Rochas Committees Of Locusts And Hoppers

Professor Adebayo Williams in his epic novel Years of the Locusts re-enacted the biblical years of locusts and hoppers. The years of locusts and hoppers are disastrous years when scavengers and devourers surge to devour the joys and sources of good living of the people of God, perhaps innocent of the ravages of the wrath-oriented invaders.

These same scavengers and devourers have risen in Imo State; as was in the biblical epoch of Pharaoh and the later time prophet Isaiah, and have been assigned to storm and wreck the sources of sustenance of Imolites. The locusts and hoppers have risen in the forms of Governor Okorocha’s Task Forces and Committees that will mop the sources of financial livelihood of the teaming population of Imo State, of artisans and virtually the self-employment life-managers.

Governor Okorocha has inaugurated a total of 37 Locusts and Hoppers’ Task Forces and Committees, each having at least four members. The Task Forces and Committees in all indications have substituted the State Executive Council, as their tenure of trial operation will culminate in December this year. By implication, there are a total of 148 new State Executive Task Forces and Committees Council replacing the possible 17 Commissioners that ought to be appointed in the State to man through their ministries the jurisdictions covered by the scavenging raiders, and there is fund to pay all these and none to pay the 17 Commissioners and Imo workers who for many months now have not been paid.

Obviously, this is a real proof that Rochas meant absolute good for Imolites, and as he promised that his second tenure would be job, job, job; employment, employment, employment, industry, industry, industry, these 148 new State Executive Council (proxy) members are eye-opener to his faithfulness to his words.

Yes! Indeed Okorocha is a man of his words. This inaugural industrialisation of task force is a millennium ingenuity that suits all Imolites and will end in transforming Imo into the reveries of the great dreamer, after all, the great Greek Philosopher, Plato, thousands of years past posited that such had existed in the World of Ideas. Thus, what he needs after ratiocinating is to implement his reverie Ideas in the Imo laboratory.

Certainly, industrialisation as defined by the Encyclopaedia Britannica is a systematic labour created for some useful purposes or values. It is also a department or branch of art, craft, business or manufacture, which employs a large personnel and capital in its execution while aiming at grand profit-making. Understood in Okorocha’s perspective planning mindset, industrialisation, which he promised and has started on a very good note, is same as the setting up of Task Forces and Committees that will man Imo affairs as a manufacturing company or as Agbero in the parks. At least, it is convincing to Imolites that the best leaders that can man better the affairs of the State are Task Forces and Committees, which in local parlance are Agbero and panels. The at least 148 Task Forces and Committees members are not even enough for the large personnel needed for the smooth and qualitative execution of the industrialisation mission.

Imo ntoo-o-oh! God in His Omniscience and Omni-benevolent does not fail to give His people what they ask for. When the Israelites asked Him for a King, He gave them Saul in place of Judges and prophets. When the Jews made a request before Pilate, they preferred the thief, Barrabbas to Jesus, the Saviour. So Imolites asked God for an industrialist and have received a grand one, an industrialist per excellence who has constituted replicated Task Forces and Committees that also contradict the statutory functions of the Federal Law Enforcement Agencies in the State, Ministries and Parastatals, etc. Virtually, every domain of Imo social existence is now industrialised with Task Forces and Committees that will mine the gold and milk out the sweet juices in the citizens’ udders. Is there any greater industry than the udders of the poor and needy, the commoners who at the exploitation of the mechanized operation of the oligarch and aristocratic Task Forces and Committees members, will generate huge internal revenue for the Governor? Why not? After all the purpose of every business venture is to make profit and the sole purpose for industrialisation is to make profit while engaging human labour, even apex leaders.

Imo from all indications is a land filled with milk and honey and it is only a wit-sighted streetwise can decipher the hidden treasures in Imo, and that is why the establishment of the Task Forces and Committees. Task Force in Nigeria is normally constituted by the street-smarts, thugs, Agberos, Arobbers, etc., for no just course other than that they as area boys know how to manipulate the environment and the vulnerable members in order to make a good living, and thus tagged illustrious sons and daughters in their villages, and even given chieftaincy titles.

Now that Imo has got 37 industries for employment and job creation, it is obvious that its socio-economic growth will be of a gallop leap. There are now Task Forces and Committees on motor park (substituting the Agbero and NURTW members), gutters and drainages, sanitation and environment, industrial parks, on sirens and tinted glasses, on Tippers and sand diggers, on toilets and bole holes, arts and culture, artisans, furniture makers and welders, private schools and hospitals, flowers and city beautifications, etc. What remain for the solidification and encompassment of the industrialization Task Forces and Committees are the inauguration of Task Forces and Committees on greasing of inter-gender groins and streetwalking, mortuary attendance and coffin-making, toileting and comfort rooms, couples prime time at matrimonial beds and number of children, Task Forces and Committees on red cap chiefs and crayfish sellers in local markets, on New Yam Festivals and traditional marriage rites, burial ceremonies and tickets before burying death relatives, cultic noises from churches and minsters, mobile and Bluetooth operation licences, etc.

Yes, these areas too, need apex Imo aristocrats and oligarchs to take up such charges. And why not, when the number three and four citizens of the State are turned into the Governor’s chief Agbero at motor parks, leaving their legislative leadership; when the Chief of Staff has incardinated into LGA voyeur, etc? That is what Imo wants and has received- Industrialisation of its corner-stones and its rubbles, the corner-stones crushing the rubbles to produce nasal dusts for the beclouding of the State so that the combine-harvester may use it to cover our vision as in Koopii, Sir Child’s play.

What is the difference between the raid of locusts and hoppers in a vegetable forage, and the aristocrats and oligarchs turned into Agbero to impose taxations on the populace who are suffering from the gross economic depreciation that has befallen Nigeria today? What is the difference between locusts and hoppers’ scavenging mission, and the constitution of Task Forces and Committees on bole hole waters where people who cannot afford any other form of water for domestic usages, rely for survival and Okorocha’s constitution of Task Forces and Committees that will collect #100,000 from every private owner of bore-hole in the State? Has the Speaker of Imo State House of Assembly not become a good instrument in the hands of the divinities in creation, being used as a chief Agbero? And why not?

That was how the former Deputy Governor, Chief Jude Agbaso felled so low and stooped to conquer and was conquered and humiliated. The same story, life is cyclic- Rt. Hon Acho Ihim and his Deputy, as well as the Chief of Staff, Chief Uche Nwosu et al, are all now on same historical genre of Sir Jude Agbaso, and as every lighting fixes nutrients to the soil, so these strides must culminate in a short distant time in the same Jude Agbaso’s saga or its like. Has the Imo State House of Assemble become Okorocha’s kitchen cabinet and State Executive Council? Where lays the principle of checks and balances that suppose to exist between the executive and legislative arms of government? Whenever locusts and hoppers come to raid a foliage, even the tendrils are used as their stepping boards.

Dear Imolites, welcome to the year of huge taxation and collapse of private establishments. Welcome to the year of heavy hospital bills in private clinics. Welcome to the year of skyrocketed children’s school fees in private schools. Welcome to the year of cease good water sources. Welcome to the year of industrialising locusts and hoppers. All hail the millennium industrialist, Governor Rochas Okorocha and his Task Forces and Committees of Locusts andHoppers. Perhaps, nay, yes- The Task Forces and Committees are blessing Locusts and Hoppers and not plagues to Imo State.