In Igbo, we would proverbially say that when a lazy child is not fit for a job, he will be looking for a fight to engage in, at all corners. This is what came to mind a fortnight when reports had it that the Abia State Governor Theodore Orji wants to invalidate the former Governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu’s degree, which he gained about eleven years ago, from Abia State University (ABSU), Uturu, Abia State.
Instantaneously the news was broken many analysts have characterised the politics of Abia State as being messier. But in a contrary view, the state’s politics is not getting any messier, because Kalu has not been playing messy politics, for the love he has for his people. What should be said is that the leadership of Abia State Government is already messier, because the man at the helm-of-affairs, expresses threats that navigate that he does not love his people.
No doubt, Gov. Orji’s government is one that hates education and will go to any length to shortchange its potentialities. Don’t forget that the government had increased students-school fees, teachers were crying for their non-paid salaries for months. So, it was not out of place to hear that Orji was about to ‘revoke’ Kalu’s degree.
Notwithstanding, politics cannot be said to be ‘messier’ when it is only one man like Orji that is always causing public stunts, therefore exposing himself to the public for people to laugh at him. Neither is he adding any professional skill to good governance nor value to the development of Abia State, but here he is chasing shadow on whatever that has to concern Kalu – his unequivocal political father.
This government has not relieved the people of the woes it had inflicted on them, which have made it a depraved government of monumental racism. A government that has failed to be vibrant, up and doing is not supposed to be talking about an individual’s school certificate, especially when its distasteful policies are widespread irritating. This was the same way the government sacked Ndigbo from other states working in Abia State and called them “strangers”. Is Kalu also a “stranger” in Abia State? One cannot fathom the incessant, but unwanted noise of Gov. T. A. Orji. His government is a thesis of how not to govern.
The worst that will befall Abia State, which many of us had earlier predicted, is yet to come from Orji. But no one shakes or should shake whenever Orji wants to experiment with Kalu. Dr. Kalu has beaten him politically in several occasions in such attempt and now, Orji is fighting, not like a wounded lion, but like a defeated wrestler that is always attempting revenge. Upon Orji’s revenge attempts against Kalu, he is always defeated and finished and made to cover face in humiliation and walk home.
One thing that many of us, observers of Gov. Orji’s disgraceful brand of politics are frowning at is that he will one day wake-up and tell Ndi-Abia that any of their wives that is not from Abia State should aswell leave the state, the same way he did to Civil Servants who were not from the state. Orji always expresses dangerous decrees, and all have exposed him to public laugh. Orji is finished! He knows this. This is the reason he has been fighting and dragging everything he could, to the mud. But Kalu is one man he has not been able to drag to the mud, no matter all that ridiculous attempts.
It is evident that Karma has caught up with Orji. His acts are done like one who is hypnotized. It is also evident that he might not know his left from his right again, except he goes to Kalu and make confessions for forgiveness, having shown political disobedience to Kalu and humanity that threw him to limelight, which he has turned to deadlight. Orji’s ‘messier’ actions against Kalu is not only, not a welcome development and condemnable, but also a case-in-point of a man who can bury his conscience and do anything in the wrong he likes, all in the name of politics.
Unhappily, the creative aspect of Orji is how to run Kalu down, whereas a conscientious and creative governor will use the natural resources the state is endowed with and turn it into a moveable one, and not a discriminatory one. It is heart touching when an elder who was supposed to be respected behaves like a gangster. This is Orji for you!
Who would expect a public office holder, let alone, that of a governor to take a decision, as childish as asking a university authority to ‘revoke’ a merited and earned degree, not just honorarium! This has shown the level of autocracy of Orji. And there is no hope and aspiration for anybody in Abia State, as far as Orji remains governor.
It is time the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which Gov. Orji is a member looked into this man and examine whether he is overdue to visit a psychiatrist. There is no person in his rightful state of mind that plays politics the way and manner he has been playing. It is imperative PDP knows that Gov. Orji has become one of the disreputable critical issues facing our democracy. Gov. Orji do not have an idea of creating a good quality job opportunities for the people of his state, but bad ideas on how to run any contrary opinion to his down, because he lacks ideas to work. And this is why the Igbo would proverbially say that when a lazy child is not fit for a job, he will be looking for a fight to engage in, at all corners.
Odimegwu Onwumere wrote in from Aba, Abia State. Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com
