Abia State Government has swamped much in the news. Either Governor Theodore Orji was swanking about many of his optical-illusion developments or critics were pointing out what they perceived were anomalies and amoralities that have played in the government culminating to underprivileged human existence in the state.

This dissertation tends to look at a number of the drawn out problems as they remained unabated. Like a Henry David Thoreau would say, great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars. On the other hand, Thoreau’s testimonial is not the case Governor Orji has been concerned with. And he does not believe in a Thomas Fuller that an invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men.

Sheer practical and inhumane life experiences are playing in Orji’s Abia State. Mournfully, they are not effecting true democracy across the state. Foolhardiness is not limited in the state. There is no creation of jobs the same way there has been creation of news, but in the wrong direction by Orji. He is not committed to building the deteriorated environments in that state and to preserving subsisting legacies.

It was intended that the Orji-led government would solidify the necessary environment for business development and conception of new jobs for the citizens. The government is rather committed to doing nothing about that, thereby frustrating untapped potentials of the state. Upon these that are downplayed in Abia State, the citizens are not left out of performing optimally in assisting the government in many ways. And they wished that the government could be concerned with their welfare, which has only become a subject of to no avail.

In any organised environment, it behooves the government to be concerned with the good affairs of its citizens, but Orji-led government sees this as the last principle of a sustainable development. The government has continued to build hope without anything to show for it for many years since it came to saddle. The government continues to use tactics of miscarriage of good governance as a legacy it will leave for the Abia people. This strategy defines the government’s ineptitude in serving the people as long as it lasts.

The Orji-led government has always swaggered of addressing the chief infrastructural needs of the people. But freshly, it said that it would reconstruct 16 roads in Aba and, one wonders why such hoodwink. An entire place like Aba to see just 16 roads? Still, this is against the many parroted so-called projects the governor had said that it expended billions of naira for in Aba. The comment that it would look into the plight of 16 major roads in Aba has further proved that the critics of the government were right when they said that the government in Abia State is underperforming.

Re-evaluating Abia State is not a sugarcoated story. The state government is always consulting its cronies in the guise that it consults Abia people on how to carry out seemingly physical, economic and environmental problems of the state. Even spiritually! One thing with the Orji-led government is that it has no basis and, it is crystal clear that it lacks the dexterity to build the institutional foundation needed by all that will serve the people right.

Abia has been one state in the annals of Nigeria where Orji has always sought the citizens’ sympathy, endurance and teamwork for many years, without him leading the people right. Somehow, the people have accepted their ill-fate to remain resolute in the face of government tyranny. No government has always said that it shares in the plight of its people and, yet, still left them in a perpetual dungeon, with the falsity that it will rebuild and build roads as soon as the rainy season collapses, when many rainy seasons had come and gone, without any of the promises kept.

Not even security has come to stay in Abia State. It is a sham when a contrary view is heard. Even the security men the federal might deployed to Aba are turning outlandish to the inhabitants. This is what the people have got in place of Orji’s swear to the people to expect his government’s antagonistic approach to repairing Aba.

It is laughable when the Orji-led government mouths that it has put up an outline to undyingly deal with the issue of flooding in Aba. How can this be when there is hardly any functional drainage and pliable roads in Aba? Not even the sanitation situation has been tackled head-long. What the people have got are the government’s boasts upon boast. The government has said that it would link water in Aba to the channels down to the Aba River and, at the same time, said that it intends to dredge and clean up the Aba River. Always double-speaking!

Maybe, the Orji-led government does not know that people look at it disdainfully; it was not long that this government spent much money in telling the world in the media that it would bring down houses it claimed were built on water channels. The government is always resolving without revolution to show. In earnest, there could hardly be any building that is obstructing water ways in Aba; the government is the problem obstructing the easy passage of flood water in Aba, for tackling the problem by only mouthing.

It is pertinent that the Orji-led government understands that the citizens are not enjoying the taxes they have been paying. With the lack of change the people can see, it is not out of place to say that the government is only interested in the taxes of the citizens and not in the citizens themselves. It is a perplexity that the government is good at witch-hunting its critics and, has not bothered to hearken to their cries. Not even the Orji-led government’s internal revenue realisation policies have yielded to the aspiration of its citizens, but a New Abia State Internal Revenue and collection platform is being implemented?

It’s a welcome development to notice that in the said new platform, those who are concerned with the on-ground revenue collection of the state were notified to hands-off their activities by the end of December 2012. This will be good because the people, especially those in Aba, have paid taxes through their nostrils.

No more blatant lies. They irritate the citizens. This Orji-led government should lead with the people’s expected plans and, not the make-belief’s government policies. There is no gainsaying the fact that the Orji-led government is not leading according to the people’s expectations. It is therefore an intimidation to the people that putting up of buildings must follow somewhat approved plans, when the government on its part is very far from showing an exemplary cross-reference to democratic norms and ties.

The Orji-led government should stop the ruse that the government is dedicated to building enormous cities, bequesting government tombstones, roads, protection of its staff and mounting its economy, when there is nothing to show for the many given words.

The irritation of the Orji-led government will passively leave the people when in earnest the government matches action with words and, by extension begin to do people-oriented jobs. Orji should respect the rule of law, which is the rule of the people. He should stop being a political actor, but a good governance actor. He should stop the mindless abuse of power. Let the government repent and embrace good governance, for the citizens and critics to abate the view of him as a small man.

•Photo: Governor Theodore Orji

*Odimegwu Onwumere who temporarily relocated to Abia State, contributed this piece from Aba. Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com

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