BETWEEN JONATHAN, ORJI and REAGAN

BY FERDINAND EKEOMA.

Since after the random disgrace of the Abia state Governor T.A. Orji by Abians during the burial of Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, observers have seen a new twist in the politics of Abia State. This time around, the governor is not talking about himself being in bondage or accusing any body of preventing him from performing, rather he has chosen to accuse one man of being responsible for his unpopularity and rejection by Abians.

Recall that his main challenger and the widely acclaimed winner of the last governorship election in the state, Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba was during the reception in honour of late Dim Ojukwu at the Enyimba township stadium barricaded in solidarity by Aba residents, and since then it has been unprovoked attacks upon attacks from the governor and his foot soldiers.

First, the governor started by accusing Ochiagha Ufomba and his party APGA of being responsible for his disgrace at the stadium, but a very civilized, well thought out and issue based response of denial by the APGA governorship hopeful, led the governor to unfolding his hidden but ungodly packages of insults, lies, verbal attacks, defamatory write ups and laughable vilifications done with atavistic propensity.

While attacking the APGA governorship candidate, the governor miscalculated by thinking that Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba would chicken out or join him in the same dirty game of name calling, but he goofed, as Ochiagha bombarded him with more facts about his reckless abuse of the office of the governor, and his very well acclaimed failure in the governance of Abia State.

Ochiagha Ufomba’s position was backed up by verifiable facts relating to budget inflation, misinformation, false and deceitful claims of project executions, false declaration of federal allocations and internally generated revenue, wasteful expenditures and misapplication of public funds, non budget implementation and criminal allocations to moribund and privately owned companies. The list is endless.

In a bid to cow Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba and probably continue in his unhindered misrule of the state, he engaged a lot of idle minds in many social network sites, bought over many news paper pages and sponsored many false advertorials, dished out attacks through the state owned Radio station, the BCA, all to diminish the intimidating profile of this innocent critic.

Beholding the doggedness of Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba and his undampened spirit in checkmating most of his anti people activities and policies, the governor went out of his way dishing out lies reminiscent of the Idunoba folk tale, but as usual, Abians dismissed it with a wave of the hand.

Before their boring movie would be over, they came up with a dirty style of using Ochiagha Ufomba’s name to script wicked articles as well as send false and misleading text messages against prominent citizens of the state, including former governor Orji Uzor Kalu. They battled fruitlessly to achieve a result, but all to no avail.

To climax their madness, the Abia destroyers who had earlier been bluntly turned down by some respected news papers who considered their cooked up stories as cheap blackmail, turned around to pump in millions of naira into a Roadside Junk News Paper called “The Rising Sun”, employed deviant rookies with a mandate to dish out lies they ignorantly thought could hurt and if possible stop Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba from pursing the course of CHANGE in Abia State .To say that their publications have made mockery of the perpetrators and the sponsors the more, is to state the obvious.

As deceitful, callous, misleading and diversionary as their tactics and tissues of lies might
be, they have failed woefully in their mission of deceiving Abians and Nigerians. Ochiagha Ufomba’s unquestionable profile and image will continue to diminish and overwhelm the low profiles and battered image of the Abia destroyers, while he tirelessly continues to remind the governor that nothing is happening in Aba textile mills, Ogwe golden chicken, meturological complex, IBB technological village, Abia Palm, Arochukwu paper industry, Modern Ceramics and Golden Guinea breweries; that the state owned National Ambassador News Papers is moribund while he pumps Abia millions in Live Tv shows and other newspapers, advertising his pictures, and that of other defeated political soldiers,and 'proposed project sites', without showing just one completed project in five years of his administration is simply ridiculous and unfortunate.

And that the claims about the building of Omuma road, Osusu road, Uratta road, the life threatening Ohanku road, Ngwa road, Obohia road and the heavily flooded Ukwu mango road, Aba/Owerri road, 210 primary health centres, Ohiya electricity project etc are wicked and deceitful, and amount to crime against Abia people. Mr President has since aligned with Ochiagha Ufomba's position on project falsification.

In his May 29th democracy day speech, President Goodluck Jonathan confirmed the obvious, that the Ohiya electricity project and Aba/Owerri road and other similar roads were built by the Federal Government. A source from the United Nations also informed this writer that the 210 health centers allegedly built by the State government were built by the United Nations. It is also an established fact that the less than a kilometer Danfodio road was built by a private hotel owner. While the much celebrated foot bridge at Abia polytechnic was built by the ETF. Where then is Abia billions? Only T.A orji can tell.