First and foremost, I must commend the Abia state government for deeming it fit to invite bloggers on an assessment tour of the state. My commendation comes as a result of the willingness of the state government to open its doors to external criticism
from non-Abia indigenes. And the fact that the governor himself gathered enough guts to invite
bloggers of all groups, is worthy of commendation. In what seemed to me like a calculated yet
desperate attempt to counter attack ‘destructive
criticism’ from all over the country especially
through the social media, I must say, a governor
that could muster enough courage to organize this
tour definitely had something to prove. Apart from the fact that the whole state capital is
littered with billboards and posters for political
campaigns which may be as a result of the
impending general elections, but then, that gave
me an insight into how much of a propagand a
governor that TA Orji is. Abia state (Umuahia) is basically an average rural-urban geographical area
in Nigeria just like so many others where governors
are self-glorifying and lazy in building human
capacity but agile in erecting monumental, bogus
projects all in the name of leaving behind a legacy
after their time in office. Well, Abia state for me wasn’t a surprise package at
all. Even though the pre-meditated picture that was painted in my mind of how dirty and undeveloped Abia state was didn’t turn out to be true after all.
Even at that, a whole lot of work needs to be done. Assessment Tour In what started on an impressive note after visiting
the Abia state specialist and diagnostic centre,
nothing else impressed me personally. We visited
the health care centre which houses an eye test
centre and also a renal failure diagnostic centre that
owns 6 dialysis machines. 1 for HIV patients, 1 for hepatitis patients and remaining 4 for conventional
patients. Good news is, it actually is a PPP effort in which
government subsidizes the costs of treatment on
each patient considering the medical fees
compared to private diagnostic centres across the
country. Particularly, a patient is required to pay a
sum of 21, 000 naira per session in which some cases a patient may need up to 3 sessions in a
week and that gives you a total of 63, 000 naira.
Laudable effort on the part of the state government
but compared to the minimum wage obtainable, it
still results in a disaster of some sort if you ask me.
The facility seemed well-equipped but my grouse is, it’s just the only one of its kind in the entirety of the
state. Although, they have made available an
outreach platform which allows rural dwellers have
access to the facility via regular visitations and
propagation of information but to what capacity is
what cannot be ascertained here. Other projects visited and inspected were:
The state’s Digital library
New governors’ office
Low, middle and high income estate layout,
Ohobo
The new timber market
Joint account allocation commission building
Skill acquisition and women development centre Amachara specialist hospital annex,Amachara The international conference centre
The new Umuahia main market The new bus terminal, Umuahia The new mechanic village, Umuahia Several primary and secondary school building
projects, Ubakala and environs, Umuahia The new Umuahia shopping mall & spa
The newly constructed Helipad, Umuahia
The renovated and new Abia state government
secretariat, Umuahia The new Umuahia event centre
The proposed site for the new bus terminal, Aba
Technical School Project, Umuahia Abia state specialist and diagnostic centre
Matters Arising
One thing that is worthy of note in all of the above
mentioned projects is the fact that most of these
projects are either in their inception stage or near-
completion stage. Considering how much longer
the present governor has to stay in power, one
can’t help but wonder what the governor had been doing in the past 7 years of his administration. The
time frame for most of these projects are actually
my main grouse as most of them didn’t commence
until 2012/2013. For example, we visited the low, middle and high
income estate layout in Ohobo, I learnt the project
kicked off in January 2014. Having spent 11
months on the said project, I could barely see
anything on the big expanse of land except for a
few foundational structures in sight and some uncompleted buildings. Now, that brings me to the
question; how does the governor intend to wrap
up this project considering the fact that he has less
than 6 months to leave his office? Well I guess you
can answer that question putting into cognizance
that in Nigeria, our government lacks continuity. One can only hope that those projects do not
become neglected by successive administrations. If a governor spent as much time as he did
between 2007-2015 and had nothing to show as
his legacy since inception and then begins to kick
off legacy projects in 2013, it shows clearly what
type of man he is. Hiding under the excuse of the
failure of his predecessors is no reason to pend important developmental projects till the very end
of his administration as he’s doing now. How do you kick off multiple mega projects in the
last year of the 8 years you were given to
administer and you can confidently say you’re
working? I can authoritatively establish it that;
majority of the projects Ochendo has initiated
(completed or not), started not more than 2 years ago which also establishes the fact that his first
tenure in office was used for absolutely nothing.
Transparency and accountability
All through the tour, questions bordering on
finances and sponsorship of projects were tactically
avoided by government officials. To think that 90
percent of the projects are private-public
partnership ventures would leave you wondering;
where exactly does the state government expend it’s monthly federal allocation, internally generated
revenue and SURE-P funds? At a point, it became irritating that government
officials on ground during the tour especially the
present commissioner for information could not
provide even estimated figures of any of the
projects. Projects executed through the PPP joint
venture should also be made available for public consumption but the reverse was the case in Abia
state because I couldn’t get information on which
private individuals/companies are involved in the
execution of all the PPP projects. If PPP project
information is not made available for public
knowledge then I can as well say that the state government is definitely hiding a lot. It also does amaze me that the Abia state
government does not have available-on-demand
breakdown of its budget anywhere not even on its
official government website. In terms of
transparency and accountability, I sincerely think
Ochendo hasn’t impressed me a bit. Running a government that hides details of its finances from
public view sure gives room for skepticism on its
transparency and accountability.
Governance
Judging by the amount of projects I have seen so
far, yes, Ochendo is working but ONLY in Umuahia.
The state governor’s limitation of development to
the state capital begs the question; is TA Orji the
governor of Umuahia local government or the
whole state of Abia? The notion that each governor has to direct development to his local government
area of birth/origin leaving out other parts of the
state is one that is very backward when it comes to
governance. I personally think that the present Abia state
governor is not running an inclusive government in
which all 17 local government areas should benefit
from. From my point of view, 95% of the work
done so far is strictly centred around Umuahia, the
state’s capital which happens to be the usual case in majority of the states in Nigeria. Directing
development to just one part of a given
geographical area usually makes rural urban
migration inevitable which in turn gives way to
over-population and also environmental pollution. I think Ochendo so far has been able to prove his
‘Facebook critics’ wrong to some extent because
among some of his legacy projects, I found some
laudable ones while some could be classified as
misplaced priority. By misplaced priority here, I’m
referring to the ongoing construction of the new government house which happens to be a massive
construction project. Now, for me, I do think that if
governor TA Orji had actually spent his first term
achieving nothing, he should have at least, directed
his second term into erecting projects that will
benefit the people of Abia state instead of a self- glorifying piece of edifice. Another relevant but indeed unreasonable project
is another massive construction project named the
International Conference Centre. I do not
understand why in God’s name Abia state would be
needing an International Conference Centre at this
particular time? Do we prioritise our problem solving in this country? For a state that earns less
than 5 billion Naira as federal allocation and around
500 million Naira as IGR, what is the social and
economic benefit of erecting a multi-billion Naira
project as such? For me, the ongoing construction
of the government house and international conference centre are cases of very wrong timing.
The desperation on the part of the governor to
erect edifices which will serve as a legacy
beclouded his sense of prioritising the state’s
needs. A state that cannot provide clean water for
its people but can embark on multiple billion Naira projects such as the new government house and
the international conference centre is a very
unserious one and knows nothing about
governance. As usual when the question about financial analysis
of these projects came up, government officials
present on site couldn’t make available a hint of
how much the projects cost in estimation. The Umuahia shopping mall and spa (whatever the
spa stands for) is quite a laudable effort by the state
government even though it’s also a PPP funded
project. I can gladly say its a fund-well-utilised
project. The Technical School Project in Umuahia was
completed but was not in use because it had not
been commissioned. The reason for that, we were
never told. Meanwhile the Amachara specialist
hospital annex, Amachara was a beauty to behold
from afar but a closer look shows the shoddy construction job, even though it was everything
like a modern well-equipped hospital. After what seemed like a calculated effort to evade
the notorious Aba, the bloggers insisted on visiting
that dreaded part of Abia state. When we got to
Aba, I wasn’t impressed at all basically because TA
Orji has close to nothing to claim there as part of his
works as majority of the projects there are works of previous administrations. The part of Aba that I saw wasn’t really looking bad as much as people had painted it to me before I embarked on the tour which simply implies; we were not taken to the real
Aba. The fact that the government officials on the
tour hesitated to take us to Aba initially, especially the Ariaria market showed that there was a lot to
hide. But one thing is certain; propaganda may
work but not forever. You cannot hide the truth
because it’s just like the sun which will always have
its way to show up in public. Finally, on the day we met the governor himself, it
definitely was a heart-warming event until the
governor declared he had totally forgotten that
bloggers were invited on a governance assessment
tour of his State. Is that an insensitive remark or a
suggestion that the governor is truly a busy man? I’ll leave you to make that judgement. In my final analysis, I do not want to think that TA
Orji invited bloggers to launder his image because if
that was the plan, he has failed terribly. He should
have just stuck to dealing with traditional
journalists because most of the participants of the
tour were people whose integrity can stand the test of time and our rocky political terrain in this
country. I just think TA Orji needs to learn a few things about
governance. He hasn’t done badly given the fact
that his state happens to be one of the lowest paid
in terms of federal allocation. But talking about
wealth creation, the governor has done zilch. I will
personally score TA Orji 10% based on what I’ve seen so far. If out of 17 local government areas, TA
Orji could proudly show us his legacy projects only
in 1 local government, then something is absolutely
wrong. One thing that’s also worthy of note is that the tour
was properly arranged in a fashion that bloggers
couldn’t assess projects properly and also couldn’t
cover much more than 1 local government. Now,
that was an intentional arrangement by the
organisers of the tour and it’s understandable. Who wants to show people his bad sides? The tour
should have just been called Umuahia Local
Government Tour as that was what it seemed like to
me. I cannot but say that it is a laudable effort for the
government to invite ordinary citizens on an
inspection of its works. It simply implies that
feedback is fast becoming a part of our governance
which is a healthy supplement for our budding
democracy. If anyone out there has got a grouse against the tour or such tours, they really should
just lay bare their points of criticism and stop being
cry babies. If you challenge the governor’s decision
to invite non-Abians on a tour of the state basically
because you believe he wants to brainwash them,
then I’m obliged to call you naive because even the governor has failed to properly execute his alleged
media propaganda by inviting bloggers (especially those from Lagos). And I’m happy to announce to you that this tour
was in no way a jamboree due to the nature of
transparent and accountable structure put in place
by my brother and friend, Chinedu Ekeke who
made sure all participants were paid exactly what
was spent to and from the tour. So, if you want to know how much was paid to
participants, you may need to make a list of
everyone on the tour, visit them one after the other
and then interrogate them accordingly. I’m sure
you’ll be shocked with what you’ll find out. Selah!
www.opinions.ng/my-candid-assessment-of-abia-state/

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