Those who have not been to Abia State would swallow all that they read in the media from the government of Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji, line, hook and sinker, oblivious that they are glaring lies painted by the government’s propagandists to be taken as truths by onlookers. The good people of Abia State, however, knew that the politics that have come to stay in the present state government is what many observers regard as “Politics of relocation to acquire”.
We have read or heard about the different relocations of peoples in Abia State that mainly comprise traders from one point to another. But what we were not told was how many of the traders could not get accommodations in the places where we were acquainted they were transferred to.
The dust of relocations of traders in Abia State from one place to another can never settle down till the government tells the general public who the real occupants of the stalls in the markets are and how much they were asked to pay before they gained entrance.
It is imperative to say that Abia State, especially, the city of Aba is now worse than Governor Orji met it. He would not tell us that Aba has become a place where residents are packing their property and are relocating to other states like Akwa Ibom State, because there is no presence of good governance in Abia State. Wait till the Akwa Ibom State Government completes its ever built ultra-modern market, and Abia State would be empty. Mark this statement!
It is a crying shame that this government continues to sell lies to the public that things are normal in Abia State, when everything has gone shamble, except the presence of marked-faces security operatives, who have taken occupation in intimidating people and, who knows where they want our people to relocate their shops, vehicles and co to. Do they now see anybody in our state as Osisikankwu that must be hounded? Especially, the fear of one Awa, who was fingered to be in charge of ‘loading buses and cars’ in the state, has become the beginning of wisdom, as his agberos now work legitimately and illegitimately.
In Aba for instance, the state government wants all the vehicles to be loading in the parks. Just two parks in a place like Aba: ‘Mivaton’ Park and Osisioma Park.
If we have to accept that vehicles must load in the parks, it behooves the government to provide the people with infrastructure, but there is rarely any one functional in the state. There is hardly any smooth and motorable road in the state to the Parks.
The Parks themselves are glorified Hades. You want somebody, say, at Ngwa road to come to the park and enter vehicle, when there is no access from there to the park. So, vehicles no longer stop beside the road and pick passengers? Not even bustops are built to help the drivers; just for the lucre of governance, anywhere drivers pack their vehicles that is not park, they have failed law and must pay sums of money that are not below N20, 000 and N25, 000. Odikwa egwu o!
But Gov. Orji’s propagandists would lie to those they can deceive that Umuahia, the capital of Abia State, has become a utopian capital, when what we could see are mainly whitewash projects that dot the state and contractors given most of the internal revenue projects being uncivil to our people, so that they could meet up with the demand of cash from Umuahia.
While expansion is part of development, we have to ask of what exactly is this government expanding. In earnest, instead of good governance being expanded in all the nooks and crannies of the state, what we could see are expansion of agberos and security personnel intimidating our peoples, already battered-by-bad governance.
This government should stop making Keke riders to cry, due to the many tickets they are ‘intimidatingly’ asked to purchase before the day runs off. The annoying thing is that the sellers of these tickets have no routine hours they operate.
As early as 5am and as late as 10pm, they are on the roads collecting money for tickets from Keke riders, likewise those channeled to man vehicles in Abia State. The latter’s habit of collecting money for the tickets is by force and fire, and needs to be curtailed, but only by the help of a spiritualist, because they invariably have the full support of the Abia State Government for their shameless conducts.
Their habits show that we do not have a government in Abia State that regulates its operations, but one that enjoys the presence of ‘anything can go’, as far as the money that would not be used to develop our state continues to ‘enter’. It is only in this state that wheelbarrow pushers are pressurised to purchase plate numbers.
Agberos in the state are plenty. You laugh with anger, about the presence of cops on patrol, usually two persons on a motorcycle, parading the dilapidated city of Aba and making preys of the citizens. As far as good governance is concerned, majority of our people are yet to see people-oriented reforms. It is not reform when residents are asked not to drop refuse where they drop them before, because you do not want new comers’ comments, whereas the state already smells of government’s incapacitations.
This Gov. T.A Orji government should be told that a performing government is not equated by the number of peoples it has displaced, but by the number of peoples that have been enlivened in its performance, but, sadly, Abia State under him has become a home of agberos and displaced and displeased persons.
Gov. T.A Orji has to buy his conscience back and put things in place that are at present wishing our people death and some have perhaps died of poor management. He should know that the only empowerment that he was able to give to our youths is to provide Kekes and Taxis for them to drive, and at the same time fill the city with agberos, who were said are contractors to the state government.
Odimegwu Onwumere is a Poet/Writer, writes from Rivers State. Tel: +2348032552855. Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com
