…By Eddie Onuzuruike…
A few years ago, the Local Government system in Abia was hotly in the news for the wrong reasons. Salaries and allowances of legitimate workers were not paid when valid evidence revealed that federal allocations were made to the 17 local government areas in Abia.
Piteous cries and lamentations from the protagonists- the civil servants rented the air. Vociferous pleas from Abians and frantic persuasions from the Governor, Chief T. A. Orji, urging the antagonists- the elected council chairmen to pay salaries were brushed off like water poured on the back of the fowl.
From an indebt investigation, it was obvious that the macabre music and the resultant voodoo dance, mindlessly enchanting the council chairs on the road were the handwork of a heartless and faceless drummer in the thicket close by. It did not need any soothsayer to tell that the unseen hand of the drummer in the thicket was a familiar one. Unfortunately, these were enacted when Abia could pass off as the bastion of a people certified with predominant Christian credentials.
One would ask, did these council chairmen forget the biblical injunction laid bare in the holy book of Luke 10, verse 7, that the worker deserves his wages.
What actually hardened their collective conscience to the extent that they failed to realize that these workers had responsibilities to families like themselves? These included wives, children, dependants and relations, many of them on terminal diseases and subjected to wheel chairs, bedridden to the extent of paralysis and other physical challenges. These were not far from non communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes that required daily administration of drugs and frequent laboratory tests.
The workers equally were saddled with arrears of rent, school fees; hospital bills and other upkeep demands like fuel and maintenance items. These desolating acts of horror and financial genocide on the helpless local government workers of yesterday look impossible today, it sounds improbable and unthinkable that men with flesh and blood could visit fellow human beings of the 21st century with such abhorrent inhumanity in a time of peace, amid touted ambience of democratic principles. But it happened when the wood was green. It raged like the tempest in the Sea of Galilee to which the disciples in Luke, Chapter 8 verse 24, shouted: ‘master, master help for we perish!’
It is possible that part of the grand design was to embarrass the governor as they assumed that they had him where they wanted him, unaware that he had his magic wand.
Having liquidated a total of over 20 billion Naira in these backlog of salaries and arrears of allowances with a masterstroke synergy with heads of service of LGAs, His Excellency Chief T.A Orji, swooped on another infestation of the Local Government system, the festering ghost workers syndrome to which he introduced the biometric system. Many of them who gained from the fraud in the system vehemently opposed. While some hid in the bureaucratic closet but casting the monkey wrench recklessly, the courageous ones infiltrated the unions and challenged the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy to a physical combat having failed to hit target previously with blackmails which seemed to be their most lethal and potent assault weapon. At the end of the day, 1727 ghost workers were exorcised.
Today, the Local Government system, a hitherto mountain heap of morass that oozed pungent and debilitating poison gas has been adroitly turned into a goldmine of projects. To this end, many of these Local Government Councils in the transition council rescue mode in over two years have showcased projects that could not have been done in ten years. Verifiable examples exist in Isikwuato LGA where over nine projects have been executed by the Obinna Ekekwe led administration where a borehole was sank and reticulated at the council head quarters. For the first time since 1991, moving Akara Motor Park which perennially clogged the Ohafia-Arochukwu Fed Highway, to a permanent site, procuring a generating set for Umunnekwu Agbo Primany Health Care Center and fencing of some primary schools.
In Aba South, a new complex is housing the Education Authority and Ndi Eze in a befitting arrangement. Another new building is for the Council Chairman who had been in a substandard structure. As it is today, two schools in Ohabia and Nnentu have been fenced. Aba North has not fared badly with the Umuola Egbelu skill Acquisition Centre, Asa Okpulo Migrant farms and fencing of schools like Ogbo Hill and Umuola Egbelu Primary Schools. Isiala Ngwa North has equally taken on environmentally degrading sites like removal of heaps of rubbish abandoned for over eight years at the council head quarters and Umukabia Market, fencing of schools at Apu na Ekpu, Ahiaba Okpuala Primary Schools, not excluding the rehabilitation of the borehole at the council and grading of nine roads for easy access.
In Umuahia North, the Chief Ndumele led LGA is aware of the challenges of hosting the State capital and has double-shuffled, completing the multi purpose hall, updating previous constructions at SSS, Army and police quarters. In like manner, fencing of schools at Ndume Otuka and Umule Community Primary Schools are routine. There are equally water projects at World Bank Health Center and the police base at Chief Tom Orji Ikoro Drive. In Ikwuano, Umuahia South, Ummunneochi, Ohafia, Aruchukwu and numerous others, it is the same harvest of projects too numerous to mention. Only recently, a gigantic shopping complex housing over 100 shops was commissioned at Umuobia, Umuahia South.
Is it not a marvel that these LGAs have changed from being curses to praises? According to Nelson Mandela, ‘the time is always right to do the right thing.’ These few listed above are few examples as I can go on and on with many but for space and time.
One would ask, what lessons have we learnt?
What will be the measures against a future and repeat occurrence of fraud, embezzlement and abuse of office?
Unarguably, the present administration of T. A is stoic in his decision, adroit in execution which has greatly rubbed off on the T. C. Chairmen, making them value-added instruments of implementation, resulting in enviable and delectable conduit of projects in the whole of Abia.
It is possible that some workers have out of greed and personal aggrandizement forgotten the horrors of yesterday and now carouse in a political cruise with the evil men of yesterday. As solutions, let there be a legal framework, most of them legislative to counter a situation where there is evidence of allocation and an official refuses to pay. I will humbly suggest some sanctions close to resignation and dismissal. In furtherance, clergies should assemble and administer curses on such act, traditional rulers and youths should further banish and ostracize, any church harboring such a despicable member should on investigation excommunicate to clean ones to and leave a good template for posterity.
Fortunately, the situation has changed. Rather than woes, SOS cries and high heaven dirges, there are now hallelujah and hosanna songs, for the councils that owed billions are now paying and projects are streaming in. Let us not forget that it took the procedural strategy of our servant leader Ochendo Global, rather than the vuvuzela style of some seeming proconsuls to redeem the drift. [Apologies to Obi Nwakanma of The Vanguard].