₦airaland Forum

Abia 2023: I'll Demystify The Office Of The Governor When Elected – Sampson Orji Reveals More


A former lawmaker, Hon. Dr. Sampson Orji popularly known as SCUORJ on Thursday, 31, March declared his intention to contest for the governorship of Abia State under the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the party secretariat in Umuahia.


Hon. Orji said that he was the first person to obtain the governorship form of the party as it was his decision, and was delegated by nobody.


Speaking to a group of supporters who came to witness the declaration, Hon. Orji noted that, as someone who had been in the corridors of power and had represented his constituency in the House of Assembly, he understands the principles of governance and how to harmonize both the executives and legislature to bring the dividends of democracy to the people, and also establish the independence of the legislature.


He said that, he’s a party man, so he understands the complexities of being a party member and how to hold the party firm irrespective of differences and interests of the members.


He said that when he becomes the Governor, he will demystify the office, by making sure the local government Chairmen are carried along in the day to day run of governance which will in turn make him more accessible to the people.


He promised to run a corrupt free governance as he would establish elders’ council that would checkmate his activities, and as well as activities of his appointees in making sure that they would be accountable on how they utilize public funds.


He noted that he is in the race not to taste the waters but to win, however, he will not seek to win at all cost as it is not a do or die for him.



“If you choose me, victory in the general election will be a foregone matter”


He pleaded the party to sieve through its members and aspirants, as well as, conduct free and credible primaries irrespective of zonal agitations as it would be a determinant factor in securing 2023 governorship position.


In response, the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) Chairman, Hon. Asiforo Okere expressed satisfaction in the way Hon. Orji distinguished himself in the parliament, and noted that he’s proud of him.


The Chairman, noted that the plead for a free and credible election is granted, and urged him to continue in a civil manner in making his consultation.


The declaration was massively graced by the big wigs of the party excos, including the local government chairmen, various clergymen and supporters.

Excerpt from
https://afnews.ng/abia-2023-i-will-demystify-the-office-of-the-governor-when-elected-sampson-orji-reveals-more/

Former member of the Abia State House of Assembly and businessman, Hon. Dr. Sampson Orji, has picked the People’s Democratic Party’ (PDP) expression of interest and nomination form for the 2023 gubernatorial election in the state.

He picked the forms respectively on 18th and 21st March, 2022.

Hon. Sampson Orji, is the Chairman/CEO, Scuorj Business Investment Ltd – a limited Liability Company that has branches in four major cities in Nigeria.

Fielding questions from newsmen immediately after picking the form, the aspirant noted that the driving force behind his ambition to govern Abia state, boils down to a strong patriotic zeal to serve the people of Abia.

Hon. Orji who represented Arochukwu constituency in the State Assembly, stated that he understands the infrastructural deficit of Abia State, especially in Abia North senatorial zone and will remedy the challenges.

Making promises on things Abians should expect if elected as governor, Hon. Orji mentioned;

-demystifying the office of the governor so there could be interaction between him, his office and the people.

-periodic accountability to Abians.

-tackling social insecurity and make civil servants live up to their bidding through a process of reward and sanction system.

– to constitute as an advisory council, all past major office holders from the state. He said these persons will help him in making critical decisions for the state interest.


As excerpted from https://afnews.ng/abia-2023-guber-hon-samson-orji-picks-nomination-form-reveals-his-agenda-read-details/



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A REJOINDER: NGWA PEOPLE STAND FOR JUSTICE, EQUITY AND FAIRNESS BY NGWA SOCIAL CLUB, SUN Newspaper 13th March 2022

The most effective lie is the one that has the shortest distance to the truth. The Ngwa Social Club seem to have ostensibly joined the vitriolic outbursts of the ukwa la ngwa who are out to confuse people with their definition of “Justice, Equity and Fairness”. What is fair in tainting a documented fact with barefaced falsehood. They are simply scoffing at the genuine demand of the Abia North Senatorial Zone. How could power Rotation now be along clanish considerations rather than the senatorial Zones which the books prescribe? If it were by such considerations, would an Ngwa man have had a turn by 2015, given that Orji Kalu with whom it started in 1999, comes from Igbere which is different from Item, different from Isu-ikwuato, different from Ohafia, different from Bende, Nneato, Abam, Ihechiowa, Arochukwu, Abiriba, Alayi, Isuochi etcetera. Or would the former Governor, Senator T.A Orji not have gone to Ikwuano, Ubakala, Ohuhu, Oboro, etcetera, to find a successor? The position being canvassed in the article is as alarming as it is condemnable.

Only a couple of days back the same Ngwa people reacted with vile insults against Senator T.A Orji, just for stating the obvious on same issue. Their outrage poured like torrents from different groups as though the elder statesman had no freedom of speech. This desperation to retain power is assuming a level that makes people loose their rationality. A document that predated the creation of Abia State and Ebonyi State could not have intended to operate as sacrosanct in the present configuration of Abia as a State.

That ‘the Old Umuahia District has ruled Abia for 16 years’ was not a function of ethnic sentiment. It was rather on the basis of a fair and equitable rotation of power, along the constitutionally recognised basis of senatorial Zones. In the zoning arrangement, the present Abia North Senatorial Zone is mainy of the Old Bende people and multi-clanish in setting, and the Abia Central Zone is made up of a combination of equal number of the two divides; three local governments of Umuahia North, Umuahia South and Ikwuano, all of old Bende, while Isiala Ngwa North, Isiala Ngwa South and Osisioma Local Governments of the Old Aba Zone populate this three local Governments.

When Orji Uzor Kalu finished his eight years in 2007, he shifted power to Abia Central Senatorial Zone of multi clanish geopolitics, with Ngwa people, Umuahia people, Ikwuano people, etcetera. but Sen T.A Orji from Ibeku emerged as his successor. It would have been unfair if Sen T.A orji finished 8 years and rooted for Ikwuano or any other clan on such sentiments, Dr. Alex Oti or Dr. Uche Ogah, as is being canvassed by the Ngwa Social Club. He rather continued in the clockwise trajectory, to Abia south of the Ngwa and Ukwa people. The lot favoured Okezie Ikpeazu as an Ngwa person from Abia South. During these times there were always the isolated incidents of aspirants from other zones who hotly contested this positions, without recourse to the so called zoning arrangement, but what has always stood clear against them is the sway of Executive support.

When Dr. Alex Oti contested same position in Abia 2015, the argument was that he is not of Abia South Extraction, not because he was not Ngwa. He is fully Ngwa and proudly so. He was very popular, with a massive war chest and an enviable political networking, yet he lost to the present Governor, because the sway of Executive support was massed behind Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu against the sturdy Alex Oti, purely on the principle of the power rotation along Senatorial Zones in a clockwise fashion. Ditto with Dr. Uche Ogah who is from Abia North. If this ethnic consideration informed the thinkng of the Establishment, there is no possibility by which Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu of the Ngwa land would have emerged.

Hear them, “therefore let it be well known and clearly understood that Ngwa Nation cannot and will not be intimidated or bullied into accepting this atrocious and completely repugnant view being canvassed by some misinformed and/or deceitful persons who obviously do not mean well for our dear State”.

What impudent rascality is such statement?! Alluding to an elder statesman as “misinformed”, “deceitful” and “not meaning well for the State”, all because he stood firm on principle by declaring that power should shift to the North in the same manner that he insisted 7 years ago that made you a beneficiary in Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu. The tragic significance of this hollow campaign is that a Party ticket to the Ukwa Ngwa on this premise will certainly spell doom for such a Party, as the days of ‘writing election results’ are over. Engrossed in an overmastering desire to retain power, the Ngwa people have caused a stir in the abia political space and deeply despised Elders who dare speak the truth. What a shame!

Truth be told, the dramatist personae in this controversy is the Governor, whose continued silence in this raging war suggests a veiled nod to this groups. If the Governor would take a cue from his predecessors and insist that power got to him because it was a clockwise trajectory along Senatorial Zones, and therefore should not become a pendulum under his watch, this controversies and vituperations would cease.

What consolation would you offer the Abia North Zone to make him wait beyond 16 years before taking power, when he knows that in a fair and equitable power rotation arrangement, no zone can wait beyond 16 years. It has been established that no one can cry more than the bereaved, and this is the reason that Abia North remains the worst infrastructurally deficit Zone in Abia. Only a Governor from Abia North will be able to tackle the developmental needs of Abia North with the requisite zeal.

In the fervent activism of the this period, provoked by the Ngwa clamour to hand power over to themselves, the ancient injunction that honour be given to whom it is due, has been consigned to the trash can. They have become intolerant of any form of dissent in very high voltage, as is made known in their subtle threat. They have primed their people to a frenzy notwithstanding the far reaching and disastrous consequences it might lead to when they lose this ‘fight’ they have begun.

The Ngwa groups undertaking this campaign of calumny are advised to observe a strict boundary between civility and rascality in their choice of words, not to further widen the polarisation of Abia polity. Surely, as sure as the seasons, when that time comes, reason will prevail, the Governor will not be deceived, and those who propound and push this agenda will be defeated in their own turf!!

Michael Kalu is of Abia North Senatorial Zone, in Abia State

THAT IGNOBLE PIECE BY DOCTOR MAX NDUAGUIBE

I know Dr. Max Nduaguibe a great deal, but I scarcely can believe that he wrote the piece I am about to join issues with. I am rather persuaded that some of the minions that dot the corridors of Abia Government House are the real authors of the piece. Actually afraid that their indiscriminate plunder of the Abia Treasury is about to end if the innocuous and well thought out statement of Sen. T.A Orji were actualised. Yes, it will be actualised, as sure as tommoro’s sun! The threats issued in the piece are empty and hollow and lacking in substance, even as it failed to quote what statement of the elder stateman is being referred to as “disparaging and insulting their illustrious son and Governor of Abia State, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu”, of whom they contributed nothing to his ascendancy to power.


That piece, in a desperate attempt to becloud the sure and undeniable fact of Sen. T.A Orji’s position, stood logic on its head and made horrendous blunders. Admitting that previous Governors handed over to candidates of their choices at their points of exit, the author glossed over factors that made it possible even in the face of robust opposition.

Truth be told, no amount of war Chest, “women and men and youths”, as it boasts ukwa la ngwa has, would have warranted Orji Kalu to hand over to Sen. T.A Orji, had the latter hailed from Igbere, Ohafia, Item, Alayi, Itumbuzo, Abam, Isu, Arochukwu, Ututu, Isu-Ikwuato, Isuochi, Nneochi, Nneato, Bende, etcetera…all of who are constituent components of the multi-clanish geopolitics of Abia North. He found a candidate of “his Choice” in Abia Central.

When Sen T.A Orji finished his tenures, against all odds, he found a candidate of “his Choice” in Abia South, Obingwa particularly, and used the same paraphernalia of “enormous power of a Governor” to insist that Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu should take over from him in a clockwise trajectory. That decision was the right decision and it was hailed by the majority of Abians, just as its appeal cut across all strata of our sociey, culminating in the emergence of the present Governor. Issuing threats with ‘enormous power which a sitting Governor weighs’, as stated in the piece, is fringe and pedestrian and points to the pathological deviation from the moral and ethical obligation which the occupants of such public office owe society. That subtle threat implies contempt and is visibly inimical to the objectives and logic of power for collective development and practice of right actions.

The power a governor has is not overmastering and countervailing power, and yet we have not heard or seen the Governor boasting of the enormous power he has to web an intricate play of mass manipulation for wrong actions. When such powers are deployed to suppress and inflict harm, it usually fails. The veiled authors of the piece should take a cue from neighbouring States and others, where such Executive rascality attempted such imposition but failed, to the shame and regret of the Party.

The same courage that informed Chief T.A Orji’s decision to choose and back Dr. Ikpeazu from Ngwa Land in Abia South is what has compelled him to state the obvious: that Abia North Senatorial Zone should produce the next Governor in a clockwise consistency, having patiently waited for sixteen years to achieve a peaceful power rotation to other zones.

The ignoble attempt to berate an elder statesman for speaking out in a matter that has the potential to polarise Abia to its very fabrics, leaves much to be desired. It is an attempt to inflict dents on his character and integrity, to which you were beneficiaries 7 years ago and still benefitting.

The points canvassed, if anything, is tantamount to super self admiration of the ‘ukwa la ngwa’ group. To hail Sen T.A orji for his action that earned him the acolade of the “father of equity” to the admiration of many, and at the same time cajole him for objectively standing on same principles 7 years down the line, makes the piece a sad commentary and lacking of grit. Memories of history do not fade quickly, yet the position of the ‘ukwa la Ngwa’ aims at fanning the embers of disunity. It is devoid of honour, vague and ambiguous, and does not equate with the ethical parameters required of such agitation.

Abia North Senatorial Zone will not back down in this contest. It is one contest that Abia North will not grudgingly accept, but shall confront with all her energy and political networking, notwithstanding which Political Party yields to this distinct possibility and profound discussion.

It is expected that the Governor would not yield to the temptations incident to this imperial condescension and extremism, issuing from his kinsmen where Might is Right. This widespread inclination of the hawks of power should not be allowed to gain ascendancy over reason. It will be incumbent on the Governor to show that he can rise from a beneficiary of Equity to a sustainer of it. And that governors do not hold the Party like a cow in tow as this near imperialists seem to be suggesting. The Governor should show honour and integrity, and shun the temptation to leave a battered State, arising from the vortex of the clash of interests, only because he gave attention to such agitation. It is honourable to call a spade by its name, not a farm implement.