By Maduka Ochiobi
Shakespeare’s saying that there is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face has always struck agile minds as more than a literary prediction. This is more understandable when it was revealed that one of Shakespeare’s favorite books during his lifetime was the bible which earlier said in Jeremiah 17:9-10 ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?’
The unfolding drama of the outbursts of disgruntled people have taken a new dimension in Umuahia where a friend turned enemy has embraced an old foe to form a devious alliance against Senator Orji. It is not so surprising since such interviews are the usual menu of The Sun Newspapers and the New Telegraph- publications from an enemy stable.
Chief Uche Akwukwaegbu alias Bawas made sweeping and mendacious claims he could hardly back up in the New Telegraph of Thursday, Sept 22, 2016, page 15. These dubious claims if subjected to scrutiny and evidence will definitely fall flat for there are so many questions to answer. For instance, why did Akwukwaegbu wait so long to apologise to OUK for T. A’s desertion. As he claimed, Orji became the governor through his intervention.
Therein he made so many claims among them that Senator T. A. Orji gave the governorship slot to the Ngwas to water his senatorial ambition. He further alleged that T. A. cannot be trusted but a man without conscience, moved to APGA and later PDP and pocketed the PDP etc. These are fabrications of a bitter loser who could not get all he wanted.
The Abia South Governorship was a long thought and drawn programme proclaimed by T. A. from inception. This was officially reinforced in 2011 electioneering warm up in Aba Stadium, when Elder Emma Adaelu, certain that T. A. would keep his promises told Ngwa and Ukwa aspirants to withdraw since they were sure of 2015 and he was proven right.
The movement out of PPA was a popular and collective decision spearheaded by Abia Reunion, a political pressure group that besieged the government house and urged him to leave the party as it portended evil. When he migrated to APGA, the realization that it was a regional party and could still lack Federal presence, a grave situation that stunted progress in Abia, necessitated the move to PDP who in their large numbers came knocking at the doors of Ochendo led by the then party chairman, Chief Nwodo. In truth, the merger with PDP brought out the man in T. A. Orji as he kept his words in the power sharing between the old PDP in the state and the new comers. Out of that truce has been a lasting peace in Abia PDP till this day. A good understanding and formidable alliance ensued between T. A. and Onyema Ugochukwu, Dr Vincent Ogbulafor and Sen Enyinnaya Abaribe to mention a few. Bawas and his wife who was a legislator then were part of the move and she contested the election and won in 2011 on the platform of PDP, so how can he turn around to condemn it after 5 years?
The relocations of the Ogwumabiri Market and others that clogged the capital city were laudable movements that improved the city centre and raised environmental status of the place. It was not an overnight move. It was one out of first ten policies of Ochendo’s first tenure but was greatly sabotaged. Chief T. A. Orji in his diplomatic style of governance, made wide consultations with the traders where he assured them that he cannot displace traders because his mother was one of them. To make for transparency, an allocation committee was empanelled where the traders and other stakeholders were members. Chief Akwukwaegbu was an insider and did not criticize the move which he constantly hailed during his demonstrative kola rituals in the Banquet Hall.
Bawas in the interview was grabbing every straw. He claimed that Eze Onuoha was neglected. The Senator, while governor made it a sing song that it was impossible to reach everybody, that anyone who benefitted from government should help others in his area. If Bawas as a major construction contractor was not happy with the plight of his Eze, as Prime Minister, what did he do to help?
It is on record that he donated some empowerment vehicles to drum up support for his wife, why didn’t he give one to Eze Sam Onuoha? How many times did he highlight the sufferings of his Principal to the governor where he had unfettered access?
Bawas countered all his lies with his last quote, ‘a man’s destiny is not tied to any other man. It is only God that can make a man, what he should be and the same God who knows right and wrong will judge between me and I.’
If he knew all these that a man’s destiny is not tied to another, why did he assemble people to pretentiously thank OUK after 9 years for making Ochendo governor? A new phrase is trending after this as seen on Rock Ukwu’s Facebook timeline: ‘I made you governor then make yourself senator!’
Bawas had unencumbered access to the Ochendo administration which continued to the senate. He was in the entourage of Senator Orji to a burial in Mbano, Imo State few days before the storming by Ogah. In a conviviality after the burial, he had intimate consultation with Ochendo. During the conviviality, he gave the aphorism of a man who during the Mbakwe days in Imo State went to meet his son, a successful civil servant and demanded that his son refund the dowry he paid on the mother since the son had concentrated his goodwill on the mother alone. It was a joke that all in the gathering laughed at. In a kind of analogy, he said that the government has only paid him 5 million out of the debt owed him. Because of the Joky way it was presented, nobody knew it was a potent threat.
Two days after he was sighted at the airport flanking Dr Uche Ogah in the triumphant entry that failed. Before then he despatched his driver to the Government House Umuahia, Abia State with a pickup laden with explosives. Was it intended to blow up the gate of government house if entry was resisted? Could Bawas really be a friend or a mole? It is manifest that God protects all otherwise this fellow would have poisoned the kola that he presided over the rituals on innumerable times. God is the supreme God and knows the heart of all men. Bawas should beware for there is a payback day.