In this two separate interviews with Mr. Jenson Okereke, the Senior Special Assistant, Public Relations to Governor T.A. Orji, and Prince Paul Ikonne, ACN governorship candidate in Abia in the 2011 election and former aide of incumbent governor, disagreed on the performance of the State governor. Excerpts:
We find him interesting – Jenson
What is going on in your state now?
I will simply say: massive development; and it is going to be non-stop till 2015. Why I say this is that the blue-print is there already and the Governor is sequential about it. No distractions and Abians are ready to lynch anybody that would attempt to draw back the hand of the clock
This means that you are trying to say that all the bad stories are unfounded?
This is politics for you and it is a game people try to achieve their aim by all means, including mud-slinging and subterfuge. And this style is not going to change because it has been structured like that intentionally. So, all you need is to be on guard, before evil people truncate your people-oriented plan. Abia State is not an exception in this pitiable political play. But we are contending with the bad people.
You recently met with Abia indigenes living in Abuja, what informed such a move?
The idea is that His Excellency, Governor T.A. Orji is pursuing the policy of inclusion and corporation; so this means that in his view, every Abian is significant in the realization of the big dream he has for Abia State. In fact, he has often said that he believes in the intelligence of an average Abia man or woman and is desirous of tapping into such resource no matter where he/she might be. Therefore with this understanding, the Governor said we need to reach out to our people.
Of course, because of the strategic nature of Abuja in the polity, it made sense that we start with that area. Therefore, I was sent to execute the project.Who and who were there and was it a successful meeting?
Those invited at least for the first time were presidents and secretaries of various town unions of Abia people in Abuja. We did not want to make it a crowded meeting to allow us become effective. The idea is that they would carry the message along to their people and bring reactions back to us accordingly. Basically, we started with what you can call the “metropolitan grassroots.” We will soon reach the Abia elite and politicians in Abuja.
The success recorded was mind-blowing. Nearly every union invited attended and were very corporative during the meeting. In fact they surprised me with the ideas they were espousing and I got to see that indeed, Abians are very intelligent.
Is this not just a political move?
We indeed resolved that it is important to meet often, especially when there is any new development in the state. Really they wanted a standardized regular forum. I promised to relay their expectation to His Excellency and that I must do. Indeed I will do everything possible to support whatever good decision reached during that meeting.
Would you say that the attendees were convinced with the explanations you gave?
Definitely they were. What I did was communication of sense making and that is what I call issue-based public relations. You try to bring some technicalities out in every issue, which people never envisaged out of myopic thinking. So, those mischief makers had fed them with wrong information all this while and I tried to disabuse their minds telling them the true story. For instance, let me tell you one thing which people do not know: Governor Orji is a very meticulous person.
He believes in careful planning before execution and that is what system management prescribes. You find out when you have done good planning, execution is easy and non-stop. The beauty is that at the end of the day you see sustainable results. People did not know what was happening until the Governor commissioned so many projects in one week during the last week of March.
I brought some copies of the Execute Informant (a magazine) and when they scanned through, it was like, “how come we have been receiving bad news all along?” But that is politics for you. The meeting ended up turning into a party of sort.
Now is your Governor receiving the needed support from your people?
Let me correct an impression I get from your question. My Governor has always received support I must tell you. So there is no issue about that. In that meeting we had at Abuja, some people actually said that the Governor is a man that leaves up to his promise and cited cases of that far reaching statement.
No he’s not impressing us – Ikonne
that is your take on the state of affairs in Abia?
What projects is he commissioning and what are their sizes and costs? I heard he went to Ukwumango and said that he commissioned a project that is not up to 200 meters. In other states, such projects are what a local government chairman commissions.
But in Abia, the reverse is the case. What the governor did at Ukwumango in Ariaria Aba was to raise the area that was being flooded and the water shifted to another location nearby. What has he done in places like Omuma, Ohanku, Obuohia, Ihie Orji , Ohafia, Obingwa, Isikwuato, just to mention but a few? Most of the places he claimed to have commissioned collapsed the following day immediately the rains came.
It is very important to let the world know that the pedestrian crossing at Abia State Polytechnic, which he also commissioned was built by an Aba-based business mogul whose office is situated around the school. Today, traders in Ariaria market Aba, on their own contributed money and are fixing collapsed A-Line road inside the market.
By the time they complete it, he will come and commission it, and tell the world that he did it again. Other Governors are commissioning 17-20 kilometre roads, hospitals, modern schools, new cities.
How do you view the sack of non-indigenes working in the state civil service late last year?
That is one policy that made mockery of his administration and reduced him to nothing before the entire Igbo race. Thinking along that line alone, makes him a patron of disunity. If other states start sending back Abians, how would he provide jobs for them? That action was one of his most unpopular policies. He was said to have taken the action so that he would be able to pay the minimum wage. Now, that he has done it, has he been able to pay the minimum wage?
If you visit states like Imo, you don’t need to be told that the governor, in his first term, is doing well with what you can see on ground. But in Abia, what a second term governor is doing is cosmetics. Does he not believe that one day he would leave that position and give an account of what he has done with the destiny and wealth of Abians?
Contrary to your view, your father, Eze Isaac Ikonne, recently sponsored an advert, saying the governor is doing well…
(Cuts in) I am happy that one of his media aides told people that they sponsored the said advertorial. The said advertorial was a private letter my father wrote to him. If my father wrote a letter to Chief T. A. Orji, and he, Orji, published the letter in a newspaper, is that not foolishness? Is that what Abians want to see? A commendation letter? Is the letter the road Abians want him to do for them? Has the publication of that letter been able to tar one kilometer of road? In fact, that publication did two major things.
One: he recognizes that my father is a first class traditional ruler in Igboland, whose view is respected. Two: it exposes Orji’s ineptitude and hungry for cheap publicity. If he is working, like his other colleagues, he does not need a letter from any individual to tell the world that he is working. I advise him to get to work, because his good works will speak for him, the same way his incapability is currently speaking for him. We have 17 local government areas in the state; let him tell us what he has done in each LGA. I challenge him to come and give account of his stewardship.
Let him tell Abians how much he has received as allocation and what projects he did with it. How can a Governor use the military to be intimidating students? Go to the Abia State University, ABSU, and see what is going on there. He increased school fees to unbearable height and the students wanted to go on peaceful demonstration, and he occupied the campus with the military and armoured tanks.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/05/t-a-orji-in-abia-abians-disagree-on-his-performance/