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Last weekend, precisely penultimate Friday, Abia State was agog. Governor Alex Otti, former Managing Director of Diamond Bank, was commissioning seven additional roads built by his administration within the last two years in Aba.
Like most of his peers do, Governor Otti invited the President Bola Tinubu, to do the commissioning. Good gesture though but it turned out to mark the actual start of cataclysmic kind of politics in a state that has continued to witness a very peaceful kind of political interplay since civil rule returned in 1999.
It was to be Governor Otti’s best hour. It was but not without strenuous efforts by a section of the opposition to put sand into a palatable pot of sauced rice. The governor’s team dodged in a most magnificent manner and came through looking better of the two combative camps after what could be rightly tagged a dogfight. If morning tells the day and it usually does it means very interesting times lie ahead.
It is however crucial to note this invitation to the President for the commissioning was the second from the state government, which had earlier in the year extended the first invitation and the President failed to attend. As would be expected tongues are wagging, asking what happened. The dust raised is still colouring the sky, but none is able to say where it is coming from. They just know the cloud looks misty.
The people of the state who were anxious to interact with their President were left disappointed and confused, their pains compounded by the fact no one has come forward to offer a credible excuse why the President didn’t come. Opposition insists the president won’t come to commission unpresidential projects. What is a presidential project would remain a subject of debate for a very long time.
Do leaders visit their people because there’s a project to be commissioned? Or is a visit predicated on meeting the people, the real sovereignty to ascertain their state, progress and omissions around them and what they want their government to do for them?
There has been the angle that it is for security reasons the president couldn’t come, because Abia is the home state of the leader of Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu. When a president can’t venture into any part of his territory, this should tell a big story about ability and control. The state government may have been surprised and a bit jolted. It is very likely it didn’t expect the turn of events. It hasn’t offered reasons the president gave for failing to turn up. Since nature would always abhor a vacuum the rumour mill is filling the void.
Voices opine that the state government said it was because of very busy schedules. If this were to be true then it offers no point. We have touched on this earlier. We argue again by observing what the people themselves felt and it is that citizens felt visiting them would have been one of such worthwhile outings. Hype followed this second attempt, curiosity and imagination ran high. It was so thick it could be cut with a knife and the people fell for it, they wanted to see the President. Like or hate President Tinubu his political sagacity has made him a politician of a different class.
But bad politics would begin to rear its head. We mention it because it is one of the things that ought to be checked if governance would become effective and rewarding. The opposition was certain that the President won’t come to Abia state. They said it and wrote it and told the people to be on the watch out. Finally it happened exactly in the manner they had predicted.
About four things came through from the commissioning episode. The first would be how do governors interface with the President? What kind of relationship exists between them? Could it be superior versus inferior? Master and subordinate? The third matter would be what we touched on earlier: do leaders visit their people and territory because there are projects to be commissioned? What is the primary objective of state visits? Finally on the issues thrown up, between Gov Otti and the opposition, who came out better from this initial skirmish?
From what I picked from the Abia case relationship between the President and governors has become an issue for politics. Governors on the same party have far more greater advantage. Those on the other side of the divide would get attention on the basis of level of support they have shown inclination to give the President and his party. We have seen this attitude exhibited on the visits the President has had and how frequently he avails himself to the chairman of the All Progressive Governors Forum.
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Late former President Muhammadu Buhari and now Tinubu after him seldom visited any state governor that didn’t show manifest support to all they did and would intend to do. Treatment they extended to Otti could have been because he is hesitant on the appeals to defect from his political platform. So there is the superior and inferior, veiled master/servant
We bastardize every concept we pick from distant places, democracy inclusive. In proper democratic system the main objective why leaders visit their people is to interact. This is no idle kind of meeting, this get together is designed to make leaders see their people in their natural settings and draw very useful deductions that would assist policy making and implementation. It can be called “needs assessment.”
Official visits are working visits. Leaders meet the people and get take away information given first hand. It is not because the leader would have to commission projects. Not at all, those could be icings in the cake. There is also the misconception of gigantic and ordinary projects. It is a misplaced one. Those who fail to fix the small things miss the foundation. This has been the biggest bane to development in Abia State and by extension the country.
Orderly traffic on our highways and inside are big projects. Orientating the citizens to behave in a given way is such a huge project in sustainable development. A road artery may be small but it is very vital by location so what qualifies such as a road as “non-presidential”? What makes a 300-room hospital a major development when the existing general hospital and neighbourhood health center is in a terrible state? How is development defined?
A rural community may desire only water, road, school, electricity and health facility well equipped with personnel who come to work regularly. On these scores Governor Otti isn’t lacking. In two years he is bringing amazing restoration to roads in the state. Umuahia going to Arochukwu isn’t a state road, very long.
One needs to go there to see what he has made of our entrance. “Omenuko Bridge” on a strategic route leading from Ohafia through Umuahia to Aba is another wonder. It is a credit to modern engineering. Ott is pulling that through. We all agree Aba can be made to become South East answer to Lagos, infact the city had a place in the nation’s economy before and after the war, it soon got lost.
No piece meal action, Otti went about it in a very holistic manner and it has paid off. President Tinubu would have testified if bad politics allowed to step foot into Aba. Workers are being paid as at when due, hospitals rehabilitation is running good and education receiving good boost.
Truth is the state was running behind and suddenly there’s a catch effort on display. No doubt for any change to happen people must be dislodged and dislocated. Often one outcome is a fight back. This is the case with Abia state. System manipulators are at war and they won’t rest till they succeed to reverse the wheel of progress. They have mastered the old decadent order and it suits if things remain same. Truth is every contradiction produces the seeds that upturn the existing order.
It happened by chance in Abia State and the good thing is that the people thought docile have woken up to a far brighter morning and it is not like they would want it to slip away so soon. It won’t matter of evil men arrive the state clutching guns. Will of the people is stronger than the barrel of guns.
The advice we have would be all good men in the axis and across the country must rise and support good leaders wherever they see one. Hasn’t it been said already that all it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to stay and do nothing. Nigerians have seen enough of terrible moments, time to embrace progress and good life that flows from it is now. Otti surprisingly has emerged one of the stars in gross darkness. It is important to let him be.
