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Chiekwe Esiaga
The founding fathers of Abia State ably led by Dr. Michael Iheonukara (MI) Okpara of blessed memory bequeathed to us “God’s Own State,” where equity, justice and fairness should prevail at all times. The Advanced Learners’ Dictionary of Current English defines charter as written or printed statement from a ruler or government while equity means fairness, right judgment and principles of justice used to correct laws when these would apply unfairly in special circumstances.
Whoever that comes to equity must come with clean hands, hence Governor Victor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State and his team of sycophants should not hide under the canopy of equity to misrule Abia beyond May 29, 2019.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the Ikpeazu-led administration of Abia State, like the immediate past one before it, is characterised by maladministration and incompetence of the highest order. Abians in their sober reflections want to know whether God’s Own State is eternally bedeviled by unperforming leaders since 2007.
Does it mean that Abia State is doomed not to have a good man as governor? Is the fault in us or in our stars?
Abians are asking: Why is it that Ikpeazu, a son of a headmaster, is not paying pensioners their stipends for almost two years now despite the ‘bailout fund and Paris Club’ released to him by President Muhammadu Buhari? If someone else had done this to Headmaster Ikpeazu when he was alive, how would Ikpeazu have felt?
Without mincing words, the blood of all the pensioners, civil servants and their relations who have died between 2017 and date as a result of being in penury perpetrated on them will cry in the “wilderness.” It is sad that the governor ignores the biblical injunction: “a labourer deserves his wage.”
Abia State cannot continue this way, hence we are going to make public the names of the cabal milking Abia and how much each of them has collected from our common patrimony. State.
Let Abians be consoled by what a great philosopher called Franz Fanon said: “The future will have no pity on those men who possessing the exceptional privilege of speaking words of truth to their oppressors, take refuge in an attitude of passivity, mute indifference and sometimes of cold complicity.” We cannot continued to promote incompetence and inept leadership on the altar of Abia charter of equity, justice and fairness. The current Abia government has failed.
The spurious claim of infrastructure development by the Ikpeazu government is like telling a blind man that there is oil in the soup, as you cannot tell him there is salt in the same soup. The Abia capital has been abandoned. The road in front of Government House is heavily flooded any day it rains. Umuahia Capital City is without street light. Why is construction work not going on in the new Government House? Mile 5 Junction – Ehume-Umunwanwa-Umuopara Road (8.5kms) in Umuahia South LGA – is still in a sorry situation. Aba-Port Harcourt Road is now worse than Governor Okezie met it and he still wants Enyimba people to vote for him.
Second tenure for any governor is determined by performance and not based on charter of equity. The performance in the last four years is low. The option open to us now is to send Ikpeazu packing on March 9, 2019 and wish him a better luck in his future endeavours while exercising our franchise in favour of Dr. Uche Sampson Ogah and his amiable running mate, Hon. Martins Azubuike, of All Progressives Congress (APC). Abians must adhere to the adage, which says: “Fool me first, shame on you and fool me second; shame on me.”
• Esiaga is a former member of the House of Representatives.
