CHARS-Africa and the hypocricy of sponsored mercenaries in Abia
– By Eagle Okoro
Reading through the media publication sponsored by the African Centre for Human Advancement and Resource Support (CHARS-Africa), with the caption, “CSO, EU, media partner to promote transparency, good governance in Abia”, and associating it with the organisation’s purported interest in promoting “transparency and good governance” in the state at a time the people are already savouring the true essence of a serious and visionary leadership as well as the abundant dividend of good governance portrays a barefaced political hypocricy at its peak.
It is a misplacement of priority and display of arrant political blackmail for any group, by whatever nomenclature, to be so misguided and sponsored by the real enemies of Abia to mount a campaign of calumny to denigrate the present administration of Gov. Chioma Alex Otti.
Although, it is not uncommon in Nigeria to find such a group with no pedigree sprouting to provide a platform for some financial gratifications to its members, who are, in the main, political jobbers that are conspicuously lacking in integrity.
I say so because the story of Abia, particularly from the return of democratic governance in 1999 to 2023, was largely synonymous with that of the biblical Israelites in the land of Egypt, where they lived and worked as slaves, struggling to satisfy their masters’ whims.
But a time came when God remembered them and raised for them a liberator, Moses, who defied Pharoah and stoically led the people of God to the Promised Land.
Likewise, today, just as the Israelites, the good people of Abia, God’s Own State, who were subjected to 24 years of excruciating economic pain, starvation and deprivation, elicited the sympathy of God after their deepest cries and supplications for help got to high heavens. And, behold, the day of reckoning came on May 29, 2023, when they got liberated from the shackles of bad governance that became their lot under the watch of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The political merchants that populated PDP spent their years in the saddle pillaging the resources of Abia shamelessly and mercilessly. They amassed so much wealth and became stupendously wealthy at the expense of millions of Abia citizens, leaving the state to bleed and rot.
For those long years, the state’s resources were regularly shared, as “blood tonic”, amongst the chieftains of PDP, who batted no eyelid over the gradual and steady sliding of Abia into an economically failed state.
So, rather than pay workers’ salaries and pensions to the state retirees, it was all merry go round at the end of every month as federal allocations were squandered and shared among those in government as well as others, referred to as elder statesmen, who stayed at home having good time, “while the she goat gave birth on a leash”.
The profligacy of the successive PDP-led governments hit a scandalous climax during the last administration of Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, who reduced governance to a scornful pedestal, dragging the once enviable Abia reputation in the mud.
Amongst the comity of states in the country, the state attracted scornful commentaries, and was easily cited as the most economically backward and least developed in the South-East, nay Nigeria.
And while unpaid salary and pension arrears piled up to an all-time high, running into hundreds of billions of naira as at May 29, 2023, the physical infrastructure across the state suffered unprecedented neglect, leading to impassable roads and bridges. Also neglected to suffer untold dilapidation were the physical structures in schools and health facilities from the primary to tertiary level.
During Ikpeazu’s administration, the two state-owned tertiary institutions, namely the Abia Polytechnic, Aba and Abia State University Teaching Hospital, Aba lost their accreditations. And it took the intervention of the Otti-led administration shortly after its inception to have them restored.
In Aba, many roads turned into thick bushes and seized to be motorable. Gladly, this administration has awarded those roads for rehabilitation and they are all, proudly speaking, nearing completion.
The roads include the Port Harcourt Road, Aba, Umuode Road, Osisioma – Ekeapra Road, Green Avenue, Omuma Road, Cemetery Road, and Udeagbala Road, among many more internal roads in the commercial town and Umuahia, the state capital.
The deplorable Ohafia-Arochukwu Road, which was abandoned and closed to traffic for about two decades, is also undergoing reconstruction, courtesy of the present administration. The same for Nunya – Isuikwuato Road. Indeed, major and gigantic road projects are currently ongoing in different parts of the three senatorial districts of the state.
Within its one year in office, the government renovated and retrofitted the Amachara General Hospital and Abia State Specialist Hospital, both in Umuahia, and had since inaugurated them for public use.
Recently, the governor launched the renovation and retrofitting of 200 Primary Health Centres that were abandoned and rendered nonfunctional by the previous PDP administrations. The programme, dubbed “Project Ekwueme”, has a 100-day completion period and spreads through all the 180 political wards in the state.
It is, therefore, preposterous that a shameless PDP would sponsor a nondescript group to undertake to challenge a government that is genuinely committed to changing the development narratives of Abia, with the ongoing transformation in practically every sector and simultaneously, too.
And without the fear of contradiction, the present administration needs to be commended for the great feat and signature projects it has been able to accomplish in less than two years of its coming on board.
It is, thus, unfortunate that CHARS-Africa could criminally and ridiculously lend itself to execute a yeoman’s assignment for a party that recklessly wasted the fortunes of Abia by having to take on a government that is confidently and conscientiously piloted by a top notch administrator and financial guru per excellence.
It would suffice to inform CHARS-Africa and its sponsors that any man, who lacked the tendencies of transparency and accountability in public office, can never boldly present himself for regular public scrutiny through media interactions as has become a routine for Gov. Otti.
For more than one year running now, he has taken the gauntlet to present to Abia citizens and residents alike his account of stewardship in his monthly live media chat, captioned “The Governor Explains”.
During the programme, which always had commissioners and other political appointees in attendance, he fields questions from different traditional and online platforms in a convivial, relaxed and no-holds-barred fashion.
The media men fire questions from the commonest to the sublime and from the most ridiculous and humorous to the most serious, including the contract sums for some of the projects so far executed by his administration.
He has in several cases volunteered information regarding the cost of some of his landmark projects, including the cost of the rehabilitation of roads, renovation and retrofitting of health facilities and schools, amongst others, without any prompting.
For instance, in one of his recent media outings, he had in response to a specific question on the cost of a road project explained that such details were in the custody of the Ministry of Works and could be provided at the behest of any genuine and well-intended inquest.
Above and beyond the foregoing, an average well-meaning Abian and persons of goodwill appreciate and are comfortable with the unfolding paradigm shift in Abia’s development trajectory and rapidly changing fortunes.
Obviously, the people have never had such an amazing development spree in all ramifications in the 33-plus years of Abia.
Gladly and more impressive is the fact that everything is happening rapidly and progressively – all at the same time – in the three major towns of Umuahia, Aba, and Ohafia. No doubt, as some public commentators would say, Abia has become a huge construction site because in the cities, villages and highways, huge construction works are steadily ongoing 2/4/7, including Sundays.
The transformation currently happening in Umuahia, reshaping the physical and structural aesthetics of the capital town, is simply amazing and unprecedented. It was the legendary and fiery Igbo leader of blessed memory, Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, that aptly described the town as “a rural capital”. This was in 2000, when he visited to inaugurate Hotel Royal Damgrete, Umuahia.
Today, the rural capital town has begun to take the looks of a befitting capital city as Gov. Otti sustains the tempo of infrastructural reimaging of the town and its environs to change Ojukwu’s undiluted and apt impression about the area, 25 years after.
This is what matters to an average Abian, who had for 24 years helplessly watched cash-n-carry, transactional politicians of PDP plunder the state’s commonwealth to acquire outlandish and massive but primitive wealth they obviously had no need for.
It is frankly bemusing that CHARS-Africa, which went mute for all the years of the locusts in Abia, apparently in a tacit approval of the unsalutory liquidation of the state’s treasury, has suddenly discovered its voice and acting as a champion for good governance. Good governance, my foot!!!
Of course, it will shock CHARS-Africa to know that more than 99 per cent of the more than four million Abia population, home and abroad, are rejoicing over the solid infrastructural transformation going on at home. The people are extremely happy that the narratives have changed from negative to positive about their state that was until May 29, 2023 the laughing stock and butt of every scorn and banter by Nollywood and stand-up comedians in the country.
They are rejoicing that a talisman is in the saddle! They are celebrating that the man with the Midas touch, and a Daniel has come to judgment and that the meteoric transformation that happened in the last dispensation in Ebonyi, Abia’s younger sister state, has just begun to happen in Abia for real. That is all this generation and older generations had long yearned for.
They collectively prayed and yearned for help to have an Abia that works, where salaries and pensions are paid as and when due. A state where the roads and basic infrastructures are provided by the government to make life meaningful. Where quality health care and education are made accessible and affordable to the common man.
And to the glory of God, all those are now at the disposal of all Abians – rich or poor. Therefore, for Abia and Abians of good conscience, the help they yearned for is here and it is forward ever with Otti’s progressive government and backward never.
– Eagle Okoro is a Public Affairs analyst and writes from Umuahia