Letter to Theodore Ahamefule Orji, Executive Governor of Abia state.

Dear Theodore,

On various social media platforms, your profile and image as governor of Abia state has suffered the most. At the moment, it is in an all time low. From Facebook to twitter and other social networks people, nay, Abians and concerned Nigerians vent their ire on your person and your administration. In fact, many justify their comments and rage with pictures.

I have childhood friends from Aba and Umuahia who follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Google⁺ .  Each morning, their sign of the cross is to take a picture with their smartphones, post it on Facebook and other platforms and tag it “This is Umuahia this morning”, “Good morning friends, Aba today”, “This is Aba, God help your people”, “This is Aba, God we are in your hands” and many others.

The pictures they post range from dilapidated roads and streets with long range potholes filled dirty water and garbage. The lengths of these roads are so much that one begins to wonder the last time Aba motorists used or saw or used a tarred road that meets international standards. It even gets worse when they post pictures of some of toilet facilities in some major hospitals within the state. These set of pictures show bowels that have outlived their usefulness. You could see large brown patches on the bowels of the water cistern, the tank and the sink. The floor looks like a place yearning for thorough clean up. Tiles had changed from white to ‘it was white’ nay, chocolate brown. They look like it has been ages the place sorry dump had been thoroughly cleaned up. They paint a picture of a state still in a late stage of underdevelopment and darkness.

The most interesting part of this is that all the pictures attract the most comments from people. But the sycophants supporting you and your praise singers do a shoddy job defending your person and your administration on those social media platforms. Either they are not seasoned, or they can’t differentiate their left from right in terms of social media campaigns. Which brings up the question, do you have a social media consultant, an attack dog who will do the dirty work defending an inefficient boss? If you don’t, it adds to your list of failures. If you do, fire him or her and employ a smart, resourceful and competent young man or woman to clean up and launder your image for you as it is in the news that you will be begging for the peoples’ votes come next year.

But in the quietness of your bedroom pick up your tablet or smart device and read some of these comments. They are not from detractors, fifth columnists or ‘political enemies’, they are from frustrated Abians who voted you into the position you occupy today as governor, but are yet to feel the impact of your government in their businesses and lives in the last seven years.

But in all these, I refused to be dragged in to commenting. I have lived in Abia state for a pretty long time, since 1999, before relocating to Lagos in 2005. I come back often, not because Abia state is a tourist’s choice destination (your administration has failed to add value to the National Museum in your state, one of the best in the country and part of our collective history as Igbos) but because my parents live and work there. Of course not in any of your agencies; your indigenization policy, your signature achievement has smeared your administration’s image in no small way. It will be remembered in a long time though I cannot say the same of Imo and Anambra states, the same lame excuse your incompetent lieutenants have offered.

So, when I got the opportunity to visit Umuahia again en route Uyo, I told myself, it would be an opportunity to see things for myself, though not Aba, but the state capital and other adjoining ‘cities’ (sorry villages that is what they are) first hand.

But it hit me that Abia state has no airport and I shuddered. Oga Theo, how can Abia state not have even a local airport and you have been there for seven years? Shame on you and your administration. What have you been doing with the monthly allocations you get and the internally generated revenue you get? Recall that many Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs) in both Aba and Umuahia have been vocal about multiple taxation they experience in the course of doing business in Abia state. Some have pitched their tents in neighbouring states with favorable business climate. So where are these monies channeled into? Ehn Theodore? Answer me abeg. Is it a case of see nothing, hear nothing? In case your praise singers have not told you, and you don’t know, an airport will reduce capital flight from your state; create direct and indirect employment to Abians and in the long run increase investment in the state. Somebody is not wearing his thinking cap.

Using the road for a long distance journey from Lagos to Umuahia implied waking up very early so one can get a bus in good order. I did and I was lucky to get a bus with its air conditioning unit in order. Added to the fact that I had brought some novels and bought newspapers along the way, the trip was smooth, apart from a spot where a policeman insisted that the driver must offload the entire luggage in the booth for him to inspect them or part with ‘something’. The driver understood, complied and the journey continued. I had a long warm shower and dozed off when I got to my Umuahia.

Uyo in Akwa Ibom state was my next destination. I didn’t want to go early. But my father and younger brother kept nudging me insisting that I was likely to spend close to two hours on a portion of the road. I didn’t want to believe them but I agreed. I had my bath, breakfast and bade them farewell. It did not take long before I understood their anxiety. 

At the Ikwuano –Ndoro axis of Ikot Ekpene road, we had been lucky to pass the first deep (very very deep) pothole. Many a driver who is not conversant with the road got stuck there and the car or truck will require to be pushed out of the spot. I sighed as we passed it, asking some passengers is this not part of Abia state? Many sighed and threw a question back at me, ‘my brother wetin we go do na?’ Not up to eight minutes after we passed the first deep pothole, we drove into a traffic gridlock. I thought that it was a matter of a small road with two drivers engaged in an ego tussle of who will let the other pass first. So, I alighted from the bus, and trekked the distance to see things for myself.

A heavy duty truck was stuck in another stretch of deep (again very very deep). A 911 truck had attempted to pull it out of the road without success. Travelers were in a fix. Some who were used to it just resigned to fate while those using the road for the first time like me ran helter skelter looking for a solution. Snippets of the comments I overheard from commercial drivers and other road users include that most of them stay on that particular spot for anything upwards of six hours! One driver said they spent the night there on a particular Sunday. This spot should not take up five seconds to pass if the road was in good order. This spot is located in Ikwuano. I was upset. Did Abia state have a governor at all? A listening and performing governor not some person occupying an exalted position, earning salary and going about having people massage his ego. I had earlier seen some haggard men wearing some rags as shorts doing a below standard job in the name of maintaining the road, courtesy of Federal Road Maintenance Agency, FERMA. The drainage they were constructing leaves much to be desired. Apart from its depth, the materials and equipment they were using were substandard. As a core art student, I had observed that what they were doing did not meet the basic standards of constructing or maintaining a road, how much more the engineers. Mr. Governor, it took a loaded Dangote truck to pull the truck out of the spot so other cars can use the road.

This is not one of those long tales of a sponsored column to undermine your person, or political ambition, Theodore, instruct your ‘boys to pick the best jeeps (Toyota Tundra 4 X 4 should be fine for this trip) in your convoy and use that road. You will understand where I am coming from. If you cannot intentionally commit funds to construction of that road, you are not worth calling a governor, nay, leader. You and your praise singing crew may argue that it is a federal road. Yes, no doubt. But it is in your constituency and you are first an Abian (the number one citizen in Abia state) before a Nigerian.

You have maintained a good working relationship with the president and Abia state has been a PDP state for a long time. I tell you today, that you, Theodore Ahamefule Orji, the so called liberator of Abia people can ensure that the road is constructed and it will not be difficult for you to get FG reimburse you even with a 10 per cent interest. But after seven years you didn’t do it and you want people to vote for you come 2015. If you can’t change the situation on this road as a governor, what is the guarantee that you will perform or deliver dividends of democracy in your next political position?

 If Abia is still underdeveloped under your administration and you were given a national award in ‘recognition of your efforts to national development’ (and in your heart you know you have done nothing significant to improve the standard of living of the people in your state, I think it is time for you start doing something tangible so the award will not look like a compensation for being politically loyal to PDP and by extension the president.

Seriously, my brother use that road once to and fro, and in the quietness of your bedroom, access the situation and tell yourself the truth, you have been shortchanging Abia people.  While you are at it, take a trip to all the local government areas in your state. If you cannot do something to restore that road and others connecting villages in your state to an eight inch tarred road, as you hand over please deposit your 96 months’ salary to a motherless babies’ home. You were not worth the vote in the first place.

You might argue that you have been embarking on empowerment programmes, revolving loans scheme and so on. But of what use are all these poverty alleviation programmes when your people have to visit dysfunctional hospitals after using the road, spend huge sums of money, with little or no results. They also take their cars to mechanics who charge cut throat prices just for servicing apart from the exorbitant fares transporters charge.

Why not provide the enabling environment for people to start up businesses on their own rather than roping them into a long spell of debt repayment? Abia traders will appreciate it f your administration if you construct that access road for them. Someone is not wearing his thinking cap.  

It was reported that pure sachets were hurled at you in Aba during the funeral rites of late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu indicating that your administration is not as popular as your administration and praise singers claim each morning on state owned broadcasting station, BCA and in the media. You will be attracting more of the peoples’ angst if you ignore this candid advice.

This is your chance to liberate your people from the shackles of underdevelopment. You claim you liberated them from godfathers and godmothers holding the state ransom, this is your opportunity to liberate them from underdevelopment, least your name will not be remembered in the annals of Abia history. Where is Ogbonnaya Onu today, Achike Udenwa of Imo state and many others who failed to leave landmark achievements in their states?  

On a lighter side Ochendo who takes the credit for the constant power in Umuahia? If it is your administration, does this same power supply extend to the remote villages scattered across the state?

Aha gi ga efu if you don’t turn things around and leap frog your constituency, your state to be one of the commercial nerve centres of the country. 

A na atu ilu si “onye a sin a o ga anwu, mechaa nwuo, o bu onye iberibe”. T.A, were ire gi guo eze gi onu.

Sincerely yours,

Chukwudi

info@sucoconsulting.com, 08030902410, www.facebook.com/chukwudi obi.33, @sonsnid741,