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Abia Onyike
As at 2015 it would have been unthinkable to imagine that any politician contesting under the banner of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ebonyi State would be having problems of being elected or re-elected. At that time, the PDP was the dominant party not only in the state but also in the region. Four years after, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Governor David Nweze Umahi, who had a landslide victory in 2015 against Edward Nkwegu of the Labour Party, is now facing stiff opposition from the masses and the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the state, Senator Soni Ogbuoji. Ogbuoji is now well positioned to lead the onslaught against Governor Umahi, as the governorship election scheduled for March 9, 2019 draws near.
The just concluded National Assembly elections on February 23, 2019, though favourable to the PDP, was marred by extreme irregularities, in a desperate bid by Umahi to win at all costs, having lost the support and goodwill of the Ebonyi masses.
Political watchers, analysts, pundits and the enlightened public may be wandering what led to the current political turn around in Ebonyi. How come Governor Umahi, the Chairman of the South-East Governors Forum, who was seen in many circles as a rising star in Igbo politics, is facing a severe problem of re-election just after his first tenure of four years as a governor of Ebonyi State? Why would Gov. Umahi appear desperate to be re-elected? Why did he need to spend so outlandishly to get himself and other PDP candidates elected?
First and foremost, there is a difference between appearance and reality. Some people believe Umahi started well by engaging in infrastructure development in Ebonyi, such as roads, bridges, and street lighting. Those who visited Abakaliki, the state capital can testify that Umahi transformed the landscape of the capital city and its environs. But his critics have faulted his style of governance and the queer processes adopted by him in running the affairs of the state. He was accused of being bombastic and pompous in language and style; extremely intolerant of other views and expert opinions.
Immediately after his inauguration on May 29, 2015, Umahi decided to cut the salaries of the state civil servants, such that Ebonyi workers are the lowest paid in the South-East geopolitical zone. A director in the sister states earn from N150, 000 to N165,000, whereas their Ebonyi counterparts earn N100,000. Umahi also stopped the payment of gratuities to retiring civil servants since 2015, without knowing that it was a statutory obligation. The previous administration, headed by Chief Martin Elechi was very dutiful in paying salaries and gratuities as at when due. To add salt to injury, Umahi sacked all the Permanent Secretaries in the public service in June 2015 and since then refused to appoint new ones to run the ministries.
There is no single Administrator in his Executive Council and he hates to listen to administrative or bureaucratic rules and regulations in running the public service. Umahi does not know the meaning of circulars, white papers, gazettes etc.
Civil servants are promoted without financial increment. Allowances for workers including Ebonyi State University and State College of Education lecturers/staff have been arbitrarily and drastically cut since Umahi mounted the saddle. Right now the workers decided to set up their campaign directorates to mobilise the Ebonyi masses to vote out Umahi before he destroys the fabric of the state public service.
Business activities in the state have been comatose since Umahi came to power, because of his decision to transform the state government into personal empire. The governor’s immediate younger brother, Austin Umahi, is PDP National Vice Chairman, South East. A few weeks before this happened, Umahi other younger brother, Maxwell Umahi, became State Deputy Chairman of PDP.
Apart from road construction, Gov Umahi never gave attention to other important sectors of development in the state. The education sector is in a state of decay as dozens of secondary schools which where WAEC centres have been closed down because of declining standards. And for a state considered to be one of the less educationally developed in Nigeria, it is a terrible situation report. The boarding- house system, subsidised by the state government, which was introduced by former Governor Martin Elechi was abandoned by Gov. Umahi, and since then Ebonyians have been grappling with the financial impositions of the government. The public schools are dilapidated with ramshackle buildings. School teachers are skeletal in the school system as the Umahi administration never employed a single teacher in its four years tenure.
In 2018, Ebonyi was the only state not represented in the National Sports Festival at Abuja, because of poor administration and wrong priorities. But Governor Umahi is fond of orchestrating a culture of false generosity. He donates extravagantly to all kinds of VIPs in Nigeria and his financial handouts range up to hundreds of millions of naira per person. He engages in unsolicited and unnecessary donations to curry the favour of some personalities who have nothing to do with Ebonyi State. Yet he is unable to pay the gratuities of his retired civil servants, who are reported to be dying instalmentally. This is certainly an act of man’s inhumanity to man and a crime against humanity.
The health sector is by no means different. Rural health centres are either poorly equipped or completely neglected. Governor Umahi has spent the last four years in the renovation of the 13 General hospitals in the state, without doing anything about the staffing and supply of drugs in the hospitals.
It is now very certain that Gov. Umahi’s declining political fortunes have become irreversible. His starvation of the Council Areas has drastically affected the grassroots, paving way for the unprecedented mass exodus of PDP stakeholders and masses who pushed into the APC steadily from December 2016 till date, to ventilate their anger. Added to this is the imposition of heavy taxes on all categories of businesses in Abakaliki metropolis, which created an army of disenchanted masses. The lava of mass resentment against Umahi’s government has been flowing underground.
As Umahi fights to retain his seat, the opposition has vowed to unseat him. The political temperature is very high and the cost of executing the election by Governor Umahi has been estimated at billions of Naira of state funds. The implication is that the young state of Ebonyi has been dragged into a socio-economic quagmire that can paralyze it for years to come.
• Onyike wrote in from
Abakaliki, Ebonyi State
capital.
