…By Justus Nwakanma…
Anybody who does not hail from Owerri, Imo State, or does not understand the underlying philosophical historicity of the expression, Owerri Spirit, would be gullibly misinformed after reading Collins Obibi’s article, Rochas Okorocha and the Owerri Spirit, published recently in some Nigerian newspapers. The article is at best, an embarrassingly supine endorsement and image-boosting stunt of the disappointment that has been the hallmark of the administration of Rochas Okorocha.
After aptly describing the Owerri Spirit as the spirit of justice, fair play and integrity; the spirit that defends human dignity, the piece veered off, like a drunken master-of-ceremony, sweeping up sentiments, bedecking Okorocha in borrowed plumes and ornaments; giving his administration a new name and apotheosizing Owelle with such angelic adulations that belie the true position of things in the Heartland.
In summary, Obibi says the Owerri spirit has not moved against Okorocha and will not move against him in 2015, because Okorocha has not provoked the spirit, first, because of the value the governor places on human capital in Imo state, and second, because “Imo as a whole today is one huge construction site and this has given a sense of belonging to the people.” This is far from being the truth.
More than anything else, Okorocha has depleted the human capital of the state rather than invest in it. It is a known fact that when he took over from Ikedi Ohakim, he sacked 10,000 youths employed by that regime and also placed an embargo on employment in the state. Two and half years later, Okorocha in lifting the embargo with his “Youth Must Work Programme,” lamented that once enterprising Imo youths have now become decadent and have been turned into beggars(See Daily Trust, July 29, 2013).
Who turned Imo youths into beggars? Has his youth must work programme solved the problem of unemployment in the state? The answer is No! During the launching of the programme the supposed beneficiaries protested vehemently that the scheme was another of the many deceitful “rescue missions” of the governor. So how can the Owerri Spirit be stultified and atrophied, unable to move?
Owerre wu oke Mba, is a philosophical deification of the moral compass, the ingenious strength, the infectious courage and the elastic hospitality that define a peoples’ greatness. We cannot calculate the worth of a people, without taking congnisance of their moral rectitude. Is Obibi not aware that the latest Youth Ambassador appointed by Okorocha to serve as a role model for Imo Youths is non-imolite, a lady with a questionable character, whose nude pictures are all over the social media and on the cover of a US-based magazine? So why would Imo youths not undress in the market place and go to dogs if the trademark of their ambassador is marketing her nude pictures in such a brazen shamefacedness?
Is Obibi not aware that our dear governor recently donated millions of naira to some youths who converted from Christianity to Islam, why the rest of the youths are hungry and decadent according to him? When has change of religion become a virtue to be celebrated and rewarded, not just with personal money, but with state funds? Is the Owerri spirit such an indolent and drunken spirit that it cannot move against the elevation of mediocrity above merit?
Obibi eulogises Okorocha as “being mindful of the sensibilities of people…Okorocha dances with school children at assembly grounds and attends town hall meetings.” He goes on to say that nobody believed that education could be free and qualitative in Imo State. But this lie, like the million legs of the millipede, can not carry Okorocha far. What has dancing with school children added to the standard of education in the state? The noise about free education in Imo state remains what it is- a noise. I am aware that undergraduates of Imo origin were asked by the state government to purchase forms from the banks for N500 each to qualify for the scholarship.
Thousands of undergraduates purchased that form. Today, not a single student in the higher institutions outside Imo state has received any bursary, or scholarship a year and half after. Only few students who study in tertiary institutions in the state have received this scholarship. Can we say with all sense of modesty, that there is truly free education in the state? Yet, it is being trumpeted everyday that billions of Naira have been spent on this.
At the primary and secondary school levels we can not say of a truth, that there is free education. The N100 daily allowance to primary school children has been stopped. Only pupils in few urban schools have been privileged to receive the free school uniforms. The rest received theirs on the pages of newspapers. These are verifiable facts. One then wonders, why in the midst of these realities, the Owerri spirit will refuse to move against Okorocha. Or has he poured libations to cover the spirit’s eyes?
Today, Imo is being touted as a huge construction site, but daily, we are being inundated with stories of abandoned and uncompleted projects. Contractors are abandoning construction sites because they are not being paid their money. Contracts are awarded without due process. These are not fairy tales but facts already in the public domain. Even the state government twice, has admitted that its contractors bolted after collecting billions of naira for jobs they did not do.
If must gloat over Obibi’s piece as an epistle of rhetoric and sophistry intended to massage his master’s ego, we cannot pardon the poverty of his summation which was laced with illogic, contradictions and half-truths which gave the writer away as an apologist of the Okorocha project.
According to him, when Okorocha left All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), he left with the soul of the party. No, please. Before he berthed in APGA, Okorocha was lost in the political wilderness without any antecedent of a progressive gadfly. APGA gave him a body and a soul. He won the election not because of who he was, but because Imolites, with the support and conspiracy of the church wanted Ohakim out by all means. Today, that same church that helped to install Okorocha is singing Nunc Dimitis.
What a laughable conclusion to say that even the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) cannot win in Imo State because the former governor Achike Udenwa left the party. The solution? That Ndi Imo should consider a political alignment, such that saw a Nasir el-Rufai go to Anambra to monitor the elections in that state. Invariably, that Imo state should queue behind All Progressives Congress (APC). Is that the kind of Owerri spirit that Obibi says has not left Okorocha, definitely not.
The Owerri spirit abhors injustice and dishonesty. Has Okorocha been dishonest and has he meted to Imolites a dose of injustice? The answer is yes. In a front page report of The Guardian (Tuesday, December 3, 2003), EFCC exonerated the impeached Deputy Governor of the state, Jude Agbaso of the allegations of embezzling N480million. Why did Okorocha lie to us Agbaso embezzled money?
The Owerri Spirit genuflects before accountability and transparency in governance. Are these present in Okorocha’s government? No!
The Owerri spirit believes that when agreements are made they must be kept. Has Okorocha fulfilled the agreement and promise he made to Owerri people before he was voted in? The answer is No. So why would anybody say Okorocha has not provoked the Owerri spirit?
I have just restricted this piece to some of the issues raised by Obibi. The truth is, it will take years and thousand of pages to chronicle the hollowness and the atrocities Rochas Okorocha has committed against a people that gave him a mandate.
The Owerri spirit has been provoked and it is vexed. It is already armed and ready to confront Okorocha in 2015. If he escapes from the landmines he would not go home unscathed, like Abubakar, in Cyprian Ekwensi’s African Nights Entertainment, who after visiting Kumin Rukuki, the forest of death, was never the same again.
Tonight, it is cold and asphyxiating. I have only one wish in my mind to get over this grueling stench of mediocrity pervading the Heartland landscape: Ntala ugba nuo mmi, Rochas na barama uba ya. Agbacha oso, agua mile.