(Intersociety & SBCHROs, Onitsha Nigeria: 8th
January 2017)-The present political harlotry,
mercantilism and lack of effective leadership in the Southeast Geopolitical
Zone have thickened and got to a maddening proportion. Just recently, the
Governors of Anambra and Imo States chose to wash their dirty linens in the public,
instead of facing mountainous governance challenges in their respective States.
It is recalled
that we had on 11th December 2016, during the 68th
Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), named the trio
of Messrs Nnamdi Kanu (POC), Peter Obi and Ike Ekweremadu as the Three
Igbo/Southeast Distinguished Personalities for 2016. Their choice arose out of
their respective efforts presently and in the past in advancing the collective
interest and emancipation of the Igbo Race without recourse to political
mercantilism and other primordial interests. It also arose out of urgent need
to find replacement for and fill leadership vacuum in the Southeast
Geopolitical Zone and ensure that marauding renegades, political harlots and
mercantilists running riot in the Zone are never allowed any breathing space.
They must be trounced and rejected with
their stolen wealth.
While Citizen
Nnamdi Kanu (POC) has effectively used his IPOB and RBL and nonviolence or
pacifism to fight against the age-long and systematic physical and structural
violence against the Igbo Race and the entire Southern Ethnic Nationalities
in the country; Citizen Peter Obi was very outstanding when he held sway as
Anambra Governor (2006-2014); particularly in the areas of due process, rule of
law and massive infrastructural development and fiscal discipline. It was also
under his leadership that the Southeast Governors and other leading politicians
and Public Office Holders from the Zone were congregated under the Southeast
Governors Forum for effective socio-political representation and development of
the Zone.
Citizen Ike
Ekweremadu, on his part, has been very dogged and unyielding till date as the
Deputy President of the Senate and true son of the Igbo Land. The trio have
steadily particularly since 2015 lent their voices against ethnic cleansing
policy of the present Federal Government towards the Igbo Race particularly by standing
up in condemnation of indiscriminate and mass killing of hundreds of unarmed
and nonviolent Pro Biafra Campaigners by the Buhari Administration as well as
killing of rural Igbo Christians by the Federal Government backed Nomad Fulani
Jihadists.
Prior to the
choice of trio of Nnamdi Kanu (POC), Peter Obi and Ike Ekweremadu, the
Southeast Geopolitical Zone was not only leaderless, but also politically
parasitic. The Zone is presently invaded and taken over by an assemblage of
renegades, political harlots and traders; who brought sorrows and miseries to
the People of the Zone in their days as Public Office Holders. The leadership
vacuum in the Zone has widened and deteriorated till date.
Today, the
Southeast Geopolitical Zone can no longer congregate and aggregate their human
and material resources for the overall development of the Zone. It is sad that
meaningful socio-economic and political development have continued to elude the
Zone; thereby given rise to the urgent need for the vacuum so created to be
filled by those who never or have not disappointed their People when they held or
are still holding sway as Public Office Holders.
In Imo State,
for instance, governance has so failed that Owerri is the only accessible city
out of the State’s 27 LGAs. This is not to talk of mountains of abandoned key
infrastructural projects littered across the State’s 27 LGAs. The Orlu Road
dualization project, for instance, started as far back as in 2011 is still not
completed. It is an act of impossibility in the State today to access and
connect its 27 Local Government Areas by road. The State’s inter LGA/communal
road network is a death trap and gets worse during the rainy season. The free
education program of the State is also a ruse owing to dearth of teaching
staff, their poor and unpaid remunerations and massively dilapidated primary
and post primary school classrooms. Mango trees and others have now been
converted to classroom blocks.
Imo State is
also the most indebted State in the Southeast Geopolitical Zone. One of the
easiest ways to ascertain how much the State owes presently locally and
internationally is to calculate its budgets from 2011 to 2016 and deduct them from
its statutory non loan receipts from the Federation Account and funds received
from donor agencies (if any) as well as its meagre internally generated
revenues (IGRs). The rest, called “budget deficits”, constitute bulk, if not
totality of public debts borrowed locally and internationally by the State in
the past five years of Rochas Okoroacha’s governorship. These exclude debts
inherited from the previous Governments in the State. Remuneration arrears of
serving and retired workers in the State are either halved and paid through
bailout borrowings or owed for several months and concealed.
In Anambra State
under the present Government of Governor William Obiano, the situation would
have been noticeably different, if not for a saving grace enjoyed by the State
in the areas of vast amount of massive infrastructural development, healthy
civil service management and sound fiscal state bequeathed by the former Peter
Obi Government’s Government. Yet in practical reality, the State has slumbered
and stunted in its economic growth and development ratio and ratings under the present
Government of Governor William Madubuchi Obiano.
Today, vast
majority of the said key infrastructures particularly roads, drainages and
waterways are begging for maintenance and sustenance. The Anambra State’s debts
stock is also on steady increase from its lower level of N11Billion as at March
2014 (see DMO updates). We have also identified political elitism as the main
killer force behind the slow pace of governance under Governor William Obiano
Administration; likewise the Okorocha Government in Imo State. The two States
are also bedevilled by governance by prototype, pretence and falsehood. In
electoral democracy, nothing is hidden under the sun. A saying still goes that
“a fowl with broken legs is not sold at homestead, but in a distance market or
community”.
The totality of
the forgoing has deeply saddened us and explained why we singled the two
governors for condemnation, for having the effrontery to wash their dirty
linens in the public instead of facing the governance responsibilities in their
respective States. Democratic government in the world over originally existed and
still exists for the purpose of ensuring
greater happiness for the greater majority of the people as well as protection
and hopes for the rest; meaning that “one day they will be happy like others”.
Governance
happiness is not ensured by running an elitist government (i.e. sharing or
wasting public funds on extravagant lifestyles and among cronies and political
elites), but by aggressively mobilizing State human and material resources for
overall development of the State and most importantly, by providing and
maintaining tirelessly key infrastructures and social development otherwise
called “tangible and intangible democracy dividends”.
Aggregating and
congregating development resources packaged in hybrid policy directions;
without mortgaging the future of the State in serial debts; is the most
effective modern way of resource mobilization for public governance. Government
indebtedness or borrowings have been out-fashioned and replaced by government
and private sector partnership or PPP. Government also boosts or stimulates
private sector growth by way of provision of industrial layouts, good road
network, security, electricity and investment friendly policies including tax
holidays and effective environmental impact and safety management and standard
controls. It is an indisputable fact in the world over that “private sector is
the largest employer of labour and bulk of government revenues”.
But in Anambra
and Imo States under Nigeria’s present democratic dispensation, the reverse is
grossly the case. These explain why we are not surprised as it concerns the
ongoing war of words between Governors William Obiano and Rochas Okorocha. The
dispute is nothing short of noises from the two locomotive governors of the
present time at disastrous expense of public governance and collective
citizens’ security in Anambra and Imo States. If the two Governors have really
focused on the governance of their States, they would have little or no time
engaging in open altercations and washing their dirty linens in the public.
Another annoying
aspect is that the two Governors are supposed to be guided by their long age as
the chief executive officers of their States in the Southeast Zone as well as
their older age brackets than the rest of the Governors in the Zone. That is to
say that Governors William Obiano and Rochas Okorocha are the oldest Governors
in the Southeast Geopolitical Zone and much older in age than the Governors of
Enugu, Ebonyi and Abia States. In other words, they are supposed to be looked
upon by others as the gubernatorial fathers of the Southeast Geopolitical Zone.
Their un-fatherly and primordial attitudes have largely been responsible for
the present state of socio-political confusion and disarray in the Southeast
Geopolitical Zone.
Instead of
congregating and aggregating other Governors and Public Office Holders in the
Southeast Geopolitical Zone for the purpose of forming a common front to
protect the Zone and its People from menacing and marauding “enemy citizens”
like Nomad Fulani Jihadists and Jihadistically
composed security formations in the Zone; the two Governors are busy
corroding with them to endanger and undermine the security of the Zone.
About 66
executive powers are given to the Governors by the Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution
while about 118 are retained by the President, out of 320 Sections of the 1999
Constitution, yet such gubernatorial powers particularly the role of Governors
William Obiano and Rochas Okorocha as Chief
Security Officers of their States, have largely remained ineffective and
less beneficial to the People of the Southeast Zone till date.
Governors
William Obiano and Rochas Okorocha, likewise the Governors of Abia and Enugu
States had at one time or the other exposed their States to Nomad Fulani
Jihadists and jihadistically composed army
formations; leading to massacre of over 310 unarmed and defenceless citizens in
one year (2015-2016) including mass killing of over 250 Pro Biafra Campaigners
in Anambra and Abia States and over 60 rural Christian farmers in Enugu and Imo
States.
It is so sad and
shocking that the Southeast Geopolitical Zone can no longer be gathered under
the auspices of the Southeast Governors Forum, which last existed in 2015 and
founded during the leadership of former Governor Peter Obi. Today, the Zone is
so disorganize, insecure and leaderless that renegades and political
prostitutes and merchants are now in-charge; leading to turning of public
governance in the Southeast Geopolitical Zone into private empires of the
Public Office Holders, their family members and cronies.
Those who milked
their States dry and became illicit billionaires overnight are now running from
pillar to pole using “Igbo Emancipation” and “Igbo Presidency” as a cover. They
also seek to be shielded from being held to account for their loots while in
public office; resulting in them resorting to “politics of any government in
power”.
Those who
illicitly collected billions and connived with powers that be to scuttle struggles
against age long Igbo annihilation policy of the present Federal Government
have also become visitors and guests to Kuje Prisons and fake apostles of Igbo
self determination. During their time as Public Office Holders, they left their
States and offices in tatters after illicitly cornering hundreds of billions of
naira worth of public resources statutorily meant for public good and good
governance of their States and the Zone. Had they acted like the trio of Nnamdi
Kanu, Peter Obi and Ike Ekweremadu when they held sway in their public offices,
the ongoing bloodletting, sufferings, sorrows and tears presently afflicting
the Igbo Race would not have arisen.
Today, they have
plummeted further and become politicians without conscience and ideology, jumping
from one party to another; ready to do anything including selling the Igbo Race
so as to maintain the status quo and protect their loots. They can never be
trusted and allowed to lead the Igbo Race or determine their collective fate
again. The People of the Southeast Geopolitical Zone must at all times be wary
of these decamped and immoral politicians who heartlessly stole and pocketed
hundreds of billions of naira of public funds meant for the development of
their Zone and People. They must be made to understand that they are on their
own and have been permanently disconnected from the mainstream Igbo Race.
We call on
Messrs Peter Obi and Ike Ekweremadu to liaise with the newly elected executives
of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo for purpose of promptly putting machinery in place for
the convocation of the Southeast
Leaders/Public Office Holders Forum. The new body under reference shall
formally take over from the moribund Southeast Governors Forum in the mean time.
Burning issues affecting the Zone including the Igbo annihilation policy of the
current Government of Retired Major Gen Muhammadu BUhari should be articulately
outlined as the core aims and objectives of the group and the Zone.
Governors and
other public office holders in the Southeast Geopolitical Zone who identify
with such core aims and objectives should be co-opted into the Leadership Forum
pending when the new and focused Southeast Governors Forum will be properly
constituted. This is what is fundamentally expected of the duo of Messrs Peter
Obi and Ike Ekweremadu in their new capacities as “the Igbo/Southeast
Distinguished Personalities for 2016”; which they shared alongside Citizen
Nnamdi Kanu (POC).
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties &
the Rule of Law (Intersociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Email: info@intersociety-ng.org
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
For: Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights
Organizations (SBCHROs)
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