Abia PDP primaries ruse (2)

Two corrections from the preface before today’s round-up:
Kingsley Emereuwa was Chief Press Secretary to Gov. T. A.
Orji of Abia State in his first tenure and not Special Adviser on
Media as inadvertently mentioned here last week. The kernel
of this intervention is a response to his vexatious article
entitled “Abia PDP Primaries and Doomsday Prophets” ven­
tilated by THISDAY of December 22. The second remedy is
that Gov. Orji has investment stakes in The Niche on Sunday—
and not defunct Next. Blame the printer’s devil for this faux
pas!
Let us take one of the lie blatancies of Aba-based Emereuwa:
“In all fairness to Gov. Orji, there was nothing to show that he
had a preference for any candidate. He maintained his mien
and stoic character in the face of all the horse-trading. Not
even from his body language did he let out any whiff of
suspicion as to his choice. If he had any preference for any of
the contestants, he kept same (sic) to his chest so as to
create a level playing ground for all.” How can any responsible
person in Abia State declare shamelessly that Gov. Orji did not
handpick the Peoples Democratic Party governorship
candidate, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu? I am sure that Gov. Orji will be
embarrassed by such falsehood brazenness by his former hire­
ling! If you must tell a lie in anticipatory beneficence, let it be
the one that is believable—not what they call black-and-white
lie.
Precedents to the emergence of the establishment candidate
were not hidden: even children still in diapers knew before the
primaries that the governor’s son, Chinedu, had anointed the
stooge long before the charade called primaries. Is Emereuwa
aware of the one-million-man march organized by Abia State
government officials in support of the last-minute lackey?
Does Emereuwa listen to the Broadcasting Corporation of Abia
(BCA) and also read The Ambassador, the state government-
owned newspaper? I have never seen this kind of professional
rascality, unfairness and compromise. Only Ikpeazu gets
mentioned in these public establishments funded with tax-
payers’ funds. I know full well that most government-owned
media agencies are usually biased in favour of governors and
their families as they cough and fart, but the parochial, in­
sensitive and unprofessional descent by the BCA is
unprecedented in Nigeria’s media history Is Emereuwa also
aware that the governorship candidate of All Progressives
Grand Alliance (APGA), Dr. Alex Otti, the most likely successor
to Gov. Orji, gets harassed and intimidated by agents of the
state government at every turn, while Ikpeazu is on an
electioneering roller-coaster facilitated publicly by the same
agents of government? The governor does not need to
chaperon Ikpeazu before we know his unseen hand and
desecration of incumbency power. Whoever does not know
that Ikpeazu is a surrogate candidate of Gov. Orji must be a
non-Abian.
Every time this matter comes up I ask myself why a governor
should be feverishly desperate to plant a lackey to take over
from him. Is it that there are things to be hidden? Does it
suggest that the governor has performed abysmally and needs
cover-up by whoever he positions as a replacement? Why
would Governors Ibrahim Shehu Shema, Sule Lamido,
Emmanuel Uduaghan and Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) of
Katsina, Jigawa, Delta and Lagos states, respectively, be
disinterested in who succeeds them? It shows their level of
confidence in their quintessential delivery of good governance
and general propriety/probity which other desperate, prospec­
tive godfather-governors lack.
Emereuwa finally satiates himself with this drunken self-
deception: “No candidate walked out of the exercise
(primaries). None alleged any form of manipulation.” This Eme­
reuwa fellow should be admitted to the Yaba Psychiatric
Hospital. Did he ever speak with the aspirants (excluding
Ikpeazu!) on the outcome of the ruse called Abia PDP
primaries? Does he have an idea of the issuance of
superfluous convertible currencies to “loyal” delegates?
With all sense of responsibility, professional candour, robust
subscription to profound existentialism and in my honour as a
devout Anglican, it is incontestable and unarguable that the
Abia PDP primaries held last month was a sham, a travesty
and a fluky slap on all Abians! The only way to clean the
Augean stables is for Abians everywhere to mobilize and
ensure that there is no perpetuity of blackout in the state by
voting en masse against government pikin Ikpeazu. Official
cousinship and unparalleled surrogacy have killed my state!
We have been mortally injured to painlessness by Ochendo!
Nobody should salt the festering anguish, please.
‘Debo rings Ochendo
He needs no introduction any more after this last time round.
His name is Yemi Adebowale, the Deputy Editor of THISDAY,
THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER. In his Ring True Column of
December 20, 2014, Page 11, he wrote a terse, but incisive,
article entitled “Abia Elders Should Call Ochendo to Order”. I
lifted the advisory piece below because of its timeliness,
forthrightness and obvious dispassion—a departure from the
viral calumniation of this racy medium as the only searchlight
on the systemic decadence in God’s Own State since May 29,
2007!
“I can’t understand what is happening in Abia State in terms
of welfare of civil servants. The founding fathers of the state
should move in and call Theodore Orji to order. The governor
called Ochendo has not really been fair to Abia civil servants.
Workers in so many departments and agencies are being owed
salaries running into several months. Workers in several states
across the nation are facing similar problems but the situation
in Abia is horrendous. I don’t know what Ochendo stands to
gain by pummeling these hapless workers. Just on Monday,
leaders of the Abia State Council of the Nigeria Labour
Congress were forced to seal the office of the state’s
accountant-general and the sub-treasury because of the woes
of the civil servants. The state’s branch of the Trade Union
Congress joined the Abia NLC in solidarity during the protest.
Chairman of the Abia NLC, Comrade Sylvanus Eyeh, confirmed
the non-payment of salaries running into several months to
thousands of civil servants. Some departments and agencies
owe as much as seven months. Eyeh also complained of huge
outstanding gratuities and pensions as well as the non-refund
of the N2,000 charges paid by workers for the confirmation,
promotion exams (CONPRO) which he said never took place
since 2013. Other grievances of Abia workers include non-
payment of gratuity and pension to retired workers. Workers in
many parastatals are also being owed huge minimum wage
arrears. Abia State Health Management Board workers are
being owed about six-month arrears of salaries. ASUBEB owes
teachers six-month salaries, while most of the tertiary
institutions owe huge arrears of salaries. Ochendo: over to
you. You must sort out this mess before you leave.”
Once again, we need more Yemi Adebowales in the on-going
crusade to extricate Abia State from the current clutches of
darkness and the looming Armageddon in the state should
Ikpeazu be chaperoned into Government House by his
eclipsing benefactor. It is a scenario that would be worse than
the costliest mistake of Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu in foisting his
ungrateful successor and worst governor in Nigeria on Abians.