REOPENING PDP’S HEALING POLITICAL – CUM – ADMINISTRATIVE ATROCITIES: A REJOINDER TO ELDER AMAH’S ILLOGICAL EPISTLE ON ABIA RAAMP

REOPENING PDP’S HEALING POLITICAL – CUM – ADMINISTRATIVE ATROCITIES: A REJOINDER TO ELDER AMAH’S ILLOGICAL EPISTLE ON ABIA RAAMP – By Eagle Okoro

Elder Abraham Amah, the factional Chairman of the dismembered, dysfunctional, and ragtag Abia State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), woke up on Wednesday on the wrong side of the bed, apparently in a bad mood, and chose to drag his media audience through an inglorious path that Abians had long resolved to forget, having discovered a new, rewarding, fulfilling, honest and prosperous path.

In an ill-conceived open letter to Gov. Alex Otti, where he attempted in all futility to massage the ego of former Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu and his repugnant administration, he shamelessly reopened a fast-healing wound, medically referred to as “evisceration”. This is defined as a severe surgical complication in which an old wound is reopened, allowing the underlying organs or tissues to protrude out of the body, thus, exposing the patient to greater health risks.

In this particular instance, Elder Amah’s letter merely exposed Ikpeazu to a fresh public scandal and more scathing opprobrium, even at a time kind-hearted Abians and the incumbent, benevolent government of Gov. Alex Chioma Otti have resolved to permanently close the chapter on the darkest era of Abia’s political history.

Yes, this is what the political period between May 29, 2015 and May 29, 2023 still represents in the life of an average Abia man and woman. It was an era when Abia’s social and economic stagnation presented the state in the most ever ridiculous and ignominous manner before other rational and progressive Nigerians, nay the global community.

Elder Amah unwittingly reopened the fast-healing wound regarding the atrocities meted to Abians and non-Abians for 24 years by the heartless, selfish, callous and merchantile political adventurers, who were bound by one philosophy, which was to continually and perpetually subjugate the state as their cash cow and personal enterprise under one umbrella – the PDP.

Taking his readers back to the era of PDP’s jungle governance – where might was right – was the ultimate thing that Elder Amah’s loud and diarrhoeal mouth only succeeded in achieving with his letter.

Gladly, today, Abia and Abians are already cruising in a smooth-sailing, progressive administration, with Gov. Otti in the saddle, meticulously, consciously and intentionally directing the affairs of the state, having a functional and prosperous New Abia as his ultimate destination. And he is discharging this onerous task with great relish, focus, finesse and utmost concentration.

The governor is fully in charge. He is on top of his game and not vulnerable nor ready to succumb to any imbecilic and distractive rantings by the so-called opposition, including Amah’s open letter on RAAMP.

Gov. Otti has just marked his second anniversary in office a few weeks ago. The event was lavishly celebrated by Abians and non-Abians of good conscience, who devoted their time and resources to appreciate this wonder man for his sterling and unrelenting drive to rewrite Abia’s incredibly poor development trajectory from creation on August 27, 1991.

Aba residents and businessmen were unmatchable. They rolled out the drums and came out colourfully attired. Their joy knew no bounds and their reason for popping the exotic champagne on the streets of Enyimba City was explicit and justified. Simply, they have seen and are witnessing, today, what they thought had become impossible and never again to happen in their own life time.

And while the celebration is still going on, a certain man and his group are sulking and brooding over their monumental loss of power. Yes, Elder Amah – who was an integral part of the disaster that characterised Abia’s past for 24 long years – is mourning and has refused to appreciate the dawn of light over darkness in God’s Own State.

He has busied himself searching and surfing the internet all night for what may not have existed and would never exist under the sincere watch of a man who has come to right the wrongs perpetrated by an insensitive, vissionless and clueless administration, superintended by a Ph.D holder, Okezie Victor Ikpeazu.

Of course, Gov. Otti is coming from a proven pedigree of performance, honesty, integrity, hardwork and self-contentment. So, one can confidently vouch that he has come to render selfless service to Abia and humanity and would not be derailed by the lust for materialism – which was already in superfluous supply for his needs before his emergence on the public sector stage.

Gov. Otti has come to clear the Augean stable and wipe away the long years of misery inflicted on the hapless and good people of Abia by a mindless group of political fraudsters, who criminally and fraudulently manoeuvred their way to power against the popular wish of the citizenry and deceitfully turned around to plunder their common patrimony for their selfish aggrandisement.

And while they, including Elder Amah, held sway in the corridors of power for 24 years, globetrotting and having frolicking, jolly good time, the people’s welfare, comfort and security, health and education mattered not. The life of the average Abia worker and his salary, pensioner and his pension were of no moment. At that time, it didn’t matter to Elder Amah – the sudden born-again accountability and transparency political philosopher – that “leadership without conscience is a tragedy”.

They stole so much from the government coffers and left workers and pensioners to starve even to death. They weaponised poverty and hunger in Abia and, for Elder Amah, the man whom God has thrown up to salvage PDP’s victims of hunger and starvation is leading “without conscience”. What an absurdity of our human thought!

How ironical and preposterous it is to say that the man that cleared the humongous arrears of salaries and pensions left behind by Elder Amah’s ‘iconic leader’ and Ph.D holder, running into over N40 billions, has no conscience?

How hypocritical it is for a chieftain of Abia PDP to brazenly accuse a Governor that has prioritised the payment of workers’ salaries and pensions over other needs on the 27th and 28th of every month as a leadership without conscience? What a metaphor!

In the health sector, it was during the Ikpeazu’s era that the sector suffered the worst neglect, with the health centres and institutions not only lying dilapidated but becoming utterly non-functional at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. It is still fresh in our minds that it was during the administration where Elder Amah, the letter writer, that the Abia State University Teaching Hospital, Aba, lost its accreditation to train medical professionals.

Interestingly, in 2023, a government that Elder Amah is accusing of lacking in conscience put the requisite conditions on ground in less than six months and the accreditation withdrawn by the relevant regulatory authorities was joyfully restored to the institution.

I wonder where Elder Amah’s conscience and those of his political leaders were buried when Ikpeazu was handing out a paltry N500 “financial assistance” to women that gave birth in government-owned health centres as incentives.

Elder Amah should also be reminded that under his darling former governor, the education sector in Abia depreciated sufficiently with primary and secondary school structures becoming ramshackle and shadows of their old selves, some coveted to private estates by members of the criminal structure and sold off to willing buyers, while Abia State University, Uturu (ABSU), Abia State Polytechnic lost accreditation in some of its courses and Abia State College of Education Technical, Arochukwu was abandoned, with more lecturers than students.

All that happened under the watch of a governor that prides himself as a Ph.D holder with Elder Amah as a leading member of the state PDP Executive. The whole state-owned institutions were left with years of salary arrears.

Today, the Otti’s administration has renovated, upgraded and equipped the deplorable schools, while the lost accreditations had been restored to multiple disciplines in ABSU to the credit of Gov. Otti’s administration.

It, therefore, becomes laughable that Elder Amah could devote such amount of energy and vehemence to paint the same Ikpeazu so colourfully, presenting him before his audience as a reformer, after he led the political mafia that ruined the fortunes and prospects of Abia and its good people.

Drawing from his letter, Elder Amah sufficiently exposed himself as one of the key players in Ikpeazu’s administration and, of course, a member of the kitchen cabinet that misled and misguided him into becoming completely indolent, insensitive and unresponsive to the yearnings and aspirations of the citizenry.

He was one of those that blind-folded Ikpeazu with õtumõkpõ (voodoo) and goaded him into colossal failure, making him the Most Ridiculed Governor of all time.

In physical infrastructure, Abia witnessed the worst rot during the eight years of Ikpeazu’s maladministration. Many roads in both the urban and rural areas became impassable with economic activities on those corridors completely paralyzed, even with his so-called imaginary super performance on rural roads with the facilities from RAAMP, according to Elder Amah, all ended up on their usual kinetic signature photoshopped billboard projects.

The ugly development brought the economic life of scores of Abians in agriculture, commerce, industry and artisanship to a halt. One particular unpardonable instance was the Port Harcourt Road, Aba, where industrial outfits and hospitality concerns were forced to wind up, with many thrown out of jobs, businesses, and viable means of livelihood.

All these happened under the eight years of Ikpeazu’s retrogressive era, where Elder Amah and his co-travellers presided over the ruling PDP and ratified decisions that brought Abia completely on its knees, socially and economically.

Now, to the issue of the Abia State Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP), a $570 Million World Bank Scheme and programme. Obviously, what is happening with the scheme is a sincere attempt by Gov. Otti to redesign, reorganise and reposition the RAAMP scheme to serve Abia better and optimally, in alignment with its primary mission and overall mandate of the noble World Bank programme.

It has nothing to do with the allegation of attempting to desecrate anybody’s legacies because there are truly no legacies to desecrate. It certainly did not call for media attack on the present administration that has devoted its two years so far in reimagining and recreating the Abia of the founding fathers’ lofty dream and aspiration.

And far from the false claim by Elder Amah, RAAMP is not an Abia State and World Bank funded programme. It is a World Bank scheme accessible to any state that is willing and forthcoming with the counterpart funds to benefit from the projects attached to the facility. RAAMP is a very low-interest World Bank-funded loan scheme to finance designated projects in rural communities.

So far, under Gov. Otti, Abia State Government has paid a total of N4.1 billion counterpart fund to access the fund for RAAMP projects across the state.

Last year, one RAAMP road project was commissioned by the governor for execution and it is currently ongoing. Another 11 rural roads, including three rural markets under the RAAMP scheme, are also due to be flagged-off soon.

Indeed, the Gov. Otti deserves to be commended for taking the bold initiative to carry out a surgical review of the quality of projects under the scheme in order to install a cutting edge management for the scheme’s investment to get better value rather than Elder Amah or anybody else taking to the media to discredit the scheme’s projects quality review effort and the governor’s good and altruistic intention.

Suffice to emphasise here that ex-Gov. Ikpeazu’s legacies were all about abracadabra – the more you look, the less you see! This is why while his contemporaries were showing off airports, hospitals, new medical university, massive road projects, flyovers and bridges (as in Ebonyi) and other massive signature projects in the health and education sectors at the end of their eight years, Elder Amah is comfortable talking about imaginary RAAMP legacies by his failed “paddy man”.

Is it not self-ridiculing to associate Ikpeazu’s administration with financial discipline, when a whopping N10 billion that was appropriated for the phantom, non-existent Abia Airport was scandalously alleged to have been “misappropriated” under his nose, with Elder Amah in the saddle as the acting State Publicity Secretary of Abia PDP?

How about the bailout funds from the Federal Government to offset salary arrears but Ikpeazu ended up leaving years of salary and pension arrears?

Abians have also not forgotten the N23 billion Paris Club Refunds to Abia State Government under ex-Gov. Ikpeazu with nothing to show for such humongous Federal Government’s huge financial interventions.

Elders like Amah should be made to understand the fact that because PDP produced roguish, deceitful, fraudulent, dishonest chieftains – leaders without conscience – who ripped off Abia for 24 years, does not mean that the state lacked the potential to produce upright leaders with conscience and tested integrity.

This is why God, at this time and season, raised Gov. Otti to lead his people, having confused the counsel and conspiracies of the evil men, who plotted against his emergence so that His promise in Joel 2:25 shall be fulfilled. He says: “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.”

And however desperately dirty and irrational Elder Amah might chose to dance in the market square with his fallacious and unfounded vituperation and malice, Abians can never go back to Egypt.

In the Governorship Election of 2023, the people spewed out PDP and everything about the party like vomit. And, having become politically wiser, unlike the dog which they are not, they can never go back to their vomit.

– Eagle Okoro is a Public Affairs commentator and writes from Umuahia