THESE, certainly, are not the best of times
for Imo State. A lot of badly scripted dramas
have, of recent, been playing out in the
‘Heartland of Igboland.
One of such dramas was a show on television
organized against Chief Ikedi Ohakim, the
former governor who has been out of office
for nearly two years now.
The programme, or rather the show, came in
an obvious continuation of the smear
campaign against the former governor.
A friend of mine told me the story (I was
out of the country on medical grounds) of
Governor Rochas Okorocha and his estranged
Deputy, Jude Agbaso’s outing on the African
Independent Television (AIT) on January 14
this year.
Agbaso, popularly called tailor in Owerri, was
Ohakim’s dressmaker and, therefore, a
regular caller at the Government House,
Owerri. And judging from how smartly
Ohakim turned out in those kaftans, I must
confess that Agbaso made good outfits for
Ohakim!
But here he was on the AIT show that fateful
day, eyes darting here and there in obvious
discomfiture arising from lack of belief in the
job he was doing, reeling out from a later-
to-be- discredited document, how Ohakim
allegedly misappropriated N62 billion!
As the deputy read the script, the governor
sat and watched like the fabled Prince Philip
of Macedonia!
After the deputy finished, my friend further
narrated, the governor took over to harangue
Ohakim: the former governor was the reason
the current Imo government was not paying
contractors; Ohakim was the reason why Imo
State was once again a landscape of refuse
mountains; indeed, Ohakim was the reason
for the seeming confusion characterizing the
conduct of public affairs in Imo State at this
time!
Nearly two years in office, the governor and
his deputy are still clueless about what to do
in Imo State and they have one man to
blame for that: Ohakim!
And so, to complete the blame game, the
government set up three judicial panels, all
at once, to look into how else to completely
finish this Ohakim.
Well, before I could digest all that and other
stories that made the front pages in my
absence, Jude Agbaso himself had become a
hunted man.
He is accused by the Imo House of Assembly,
a parastatal of the Government House, where
the Speaker is said to act like the governor’s
dutiful PA (Personal Assistant), of allegedly
collecting a bribe of N458 million from the
Managing Director of JPROS International
Limited. Agbaso has called his travail political
witch-hunting (really?) Well, may be.
But the House has insisted that he took the
bribe and for that, it has passed a vote of no
confidence on him and commenced
impeachment proceedings against him.
The bribery accusation is not surprising to
anyone familiar with what is going on in Imo
State at the moment.
In which other state in Nigeria would
government award multi-billion naira
contracts without tender, without designs,
without bills of quantity, without any
documentation whatsoever?
In which other state, except Imo, would a
government pay upfront 100 per cent of the
cost of a contract? For what motive are
contracts awarded in this manner and paid
for?
If a contractor could allegedly part with
almost half a billion in kickback, he earns the
right to abandon the contract!
It is no surprise, therefore, the new
administration has not completed one
kilometre of the roads that are weekly
advertised on AIT.
Today, the government cannot even remove
refuse from the streets of Owerri; it owes
workers months of salary arrears and
allowances and is apparently clueless about
the precarious security situation in the state.
And, yet, Okorocha wants to be the much
talked-about Nigerian President of Igbo
extraction that everyone expects to happen
sooner or later. And the question is, if you
cannot trust someone with small things, how
can you trust such a person with big things?
The Okorocha administration has told Imo
people and Nigerians that it has built a
world-class primary school in each of the 305
INEC wards in the state. But, we all come
from wards in Imo State.
Except the one deliberately exhibited on
Wetheral Road, Owerri, the government’s
world-class schools, for which they
demolished Ohakim’s millennium classrooms
all over the state, do not exist anywhere else
in Imo State.
The touted 27 new General Hospitals built by
the administration do not exist anywhere in
Imo State.
As this macabre dance continued, Agbaso
allowed himself to be mesmerized by his
principal, riding in the same car with the
governor, denying his resignation, denying
the padlocking of his office and his
programmed impeachment, thus confusing
Imo people about what is going on.
But, Jude and Martin Agbaso will soon learn
that dealing with the Imo governor is like
riding a tiger’s tail: they may just end up in
the tiger’s bowel.
Of course, the governor does not want Jude
to resign; he wants him impeached and
disgraced out of office.
It is ridiculous for Agbaso to link his travails
to 2015. Did it just dawn on him that he and
his brother, their financiers and supporters,
may have naively betrayed Owerri zone?
Why is he now craving the sympathy of Imo
people for helping Okorocha and Udenwa to
destroy the Imo Charter of Equity out of their
own selfish ends?
It ought to have occurred to them that what
is happening now was bound to happen!
The tragedy of Imo State is that every
important stakeholder appears to be
acquiescing to what is going in the state at
the moment!
At a time like this, I am compelled to ask, at
what point will people like Chief Emmanuel
Iwuanyanwu, Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu, Dr. Pascal
Dozie, Chief Udunna, Chief I.D. Nwoga,
Archbishop JV Obinna and other elders of the
state step in to retrieve the state from some
marauding cowboys?
Why are those gaudily attired traditional
rulers mortgaging their conscience to clap for
the macabre dancing going on in Imo? This
matter is no longer about Ohakim, no matter
how paranoid his traducers get about him.
Ohakim left office almost two years ago. The
matter is how to save Imo from further
destruction.
All I have to say to everybody who is
kowtowing to these predatory young men in
power is that it is not good to swallow
disgusting phlegm because of hunger!
Article is written by Festus Agunna.
•Festus Agunna lives in Owerri
www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=117744:the-tragedy-of-imo-state&catid=73:policy-a-politics&Itemid=607

Story too long,am I first to comment?

Weten concern agbero with over load?

pato2775: Story too long,am I first to comment?

It is not for the challenged audience