A very
significant event—a peaceful mass protest against the misgovernance and mindless
plunder of Imo State by Mr. Rochas Okorocha—took place in Owerri exactly a
month ago, on Monday, December 18, 2017. It was organized by the Imo Peopl
es
Action for Democracy (IPAD), a coalition of civil society and professional
groups in Imo State. It didn’t get much media traction, not because it didn’t
deserve national media attention. Part of the problem is the character of the
Nigerian media. The other explanation was the concerted effort by Mr. Okorocha
and his goons, aided by the Nigeria Police, to suppress the protest.
By the
morning of the protest, radio stations in Owerri were running bulletins issued
by the Nigeria police, claiming that the protest had been called off because
the police had declared it illegal. That declaration was of course, not only
patently false but illegal considering that the Nigerian constitution
guarantees citizens freedom of thought and expression.
Not trusting
their own propaganda, Mr. Okorocha and the police rolled out tanks, deployed
various security outfits, and laid siege to Owerri, searching vehicles coming
into the city center for protesters. Their machinations, and the massive
security presence, notwithstanding, citizens of Imo State came out to show
their displeasure with Mr. Okorocha’s harebrained policies. Expectedly, the
police confronted the protesters, firing tear gas, attacking those who refused
to disperse and confiscating banners and placards.
Interestingly,
on the same day, Mr. Okorocha’s myrmidons, suborned by a vicious and clueless
chief executive, gathered at the Imo International Convention Centre (IICC),
Owerri, with full security protection, singing and dancing, to show their
“support” for a man desperate for acceptance and approval even with the
national opprobrium his time as governor has drawn.
A day
before, as I distributed leaflets about the protest at an anti-imperialist
youth camp organized by Social Action in Owerri, one of the young people I met
informed me that the Imo State government had made available two million naira
(N2,000,000) for youths from all the local governments in the state to dissuade
them from joining the protest.
The
responsibility of “sharing” the largesse fell on Onwueyiagwu Valentine who was
just two weeks old on the job as commissioner for youth development. The young man in question told me, in an
appealingly irreverent way, that when he and his mates were summoned by the
obviously edgy commissioner, he had no inkling that he was going to convey Mr.
Okorocha’s message that the youth should be paid to put the kibosh on the
protest. He said his share of the money was three thousand naira (N3,000) and
that he collected it to cover his transportation. He assured me he would
participate in the protest. This is just an insight into how far a desperate
Mr. Okorocha went to deny Imolites their right to protest his malfeasance.
The December
18th, 2017 protest was significant for three reasons: one, it laid to rest the
myth that the tyranny of Mr. Okorocha could not be challenged; two, it showed
the incestuous, and profitable, relationship between Mr. Okorocha and the
Nigeria Police Force in Imo State headed by Mr. Chris Ezike, the state police
commissioner; three, it marked the beginning of what would be a long-drawn-out
battle to reclaim Imo State and rescue it from the grips of a grotesque
mediocrity, to use Karl Marx’s apt description of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. I
shall return to this third point.
Anyone who
has taken, even a cursory, interest in happenings in Nigeria, will be piqued by
the actions of the menace called Rochas Anayo Okorocha, the governor of Imo
State. Two years after he took office on May 29, 2011, he orchestrated the
impeachment of his then deputy, Jude Agbaso, by the State House of Assembly,
accusing him of corruption. Okorocha installed his sidekick and chief of staff,
Eze Madumere, as deputy governor.
For Imolites
who had gone through a string of ineffectual governors—including Okorocha’s
predecessor, Ikedi Ohakim, himself a devious administrator—the emergence of Mr.
Okorocha in 2011 was a testament to the beauty of democracy and the power of
the people. Mr. Okorocha’s antecedents did not qualify him to run a local
government much less a state. His “fame” derived from what Nobel laureate, Prof
Wole Soyinka, describes as being an “appendage of power.” A semi-literate
political freeloader who has toyed with the idea of running for president
several times, Mr. Okorocha promoted himself as a “successful businessman and
education philanthropist.” In April 2011, he “won” a highly controversial
election marred by irregularities and became the fourteenth governor of Imo
State since its creation in 1976.
Let it be
clear, some of those who oppose Mr. Okorocha today supported him a few years
ago. They thought, then, that considering his so-called rag to riches story,
Mr. Okorocha could empathize with the harried citizens of the state. Imolites
were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the heels of a succession
of depraved governors. It didn’t take long before Mr. Okorocha proved that
governorship of Imo State was beyond his pay grade.
In a recent
interview with Tell magazine, Mr. Okorocha noted: “My ideas drive me crazy.” He
wasn’t speaking figuratively. Going by his own insane admission, there is no
other way to describe his stewardship other than pure madness. Mr. Okorocha has
embarked on the most reckless anti-people programmes Imolites have witnessed.
He has demolished markets, displacing poor market men and women without
providing succor. Civil servants are owed backlog of salaries and when they are
paid, they are only given a percentage of their salary. Same for pensioners. He
runs the finances of Imo State without recourse to the State House of Assembly.
In an October 14th, 2016 petition addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari, a
group, Concerned Citizens of Imo State noted, among other things, that Mr.
Okorocha had destroyed the civil service in the state and rendered it
ineffective.
According to
the group, “The first thing he did after he took office was to publicly
announce: ‘I do not believe in the use of files or in due process. Due process
is due corruption; whenever I wake up, I move where my mind directs me.’ The
governor makes appointments bypassing the state Civil Service Commission and
with no regard for competence. Workers in the state civil service are the worst
hit. Permanent secretaries, directors, and professionals like doctors,
engineers, architects, and surveyors are mere spectators, even in areas where
their specialty and experience are most needed. Their jobs have been taken over
by Okorocha’s surrogates.”
Indeed, Mr.
Okorocha’s mind has been directing him to all kinds of inanities. A few years
ago, he woke up and his mind directed him to pull down the central library—an
edifice older than Imo State and one which, as an undergraduate at the
University of Calabar three decades ago, was a refuge for me and many in my
generation and beyond—to construct what has turned out to be his personal
cathedral.
Recently,
not being able to pay civil servants, notwithstanding the billions of naira
from the federal government to meet that obligation, Mr. Okorocha woke up one
morning and his mind directed him to declare a three-day work week. He asked
civil servants who were owed months of salary arrears to take up farming to
make up for the unpaid wages. His latest idle fancy is erecting statues in Owerri.
And Mr. Okorocha’s statues don’t come cheap as he gleefully told Channels TV in
an interview a few weeks ago. He recently commissioned one, amid national
outrage, of the certified rogue president, Jacob Zuma of South Africa.
Back to the
issue of reclaiming Imo State. Today, the state has become the Okorocha
fiefdom. For Mr. Okorocha, democracy simply means a government of the
Okorochas, by the Okorochas, and for the Okorochas. Last month, he announced
his younger sister, Ogechi Ololo (nee Okorocha)—deputy chief of staff for
internal and domestic affairs—as commissioner for “happiness and couples'
fulfillment,” and later, “purpose fulfillment.” He has no compunction naming
public buildings after his family members. His father-in-law, Prof Anthony Anwukah,
a former secretary to the state government under Mr. Okorocha, and now the
junior minister of education, is the minister representing Imo State in the
Federal Executive Council.
A few days
before the December 18 protest, Uche Nwosu, ex-personal assistant, lapdog, and
son-in-law of Mr. Okorocha, and currently his chief of staff, launched what was
clearly his 2019 governorship campaign, leaving no one in doubt that the
son-in-law is being primed to replace the father-in-law; a grand tragedy set to
be replaced by a rotten farce, to paraphrase Friedrich Engels. Regrettably,
some members of the do-nothing Imo State House of Assembly have already
endorsed this caricature.
There is so
much a people can endure. It is comforting that the Imo Peoples Action for Democracy
has declared 2018 a year of rage! Now that the heat is on, those who aspire to
lead Imo State in 2019 must stand up and be counted.
Onumah is
the author of We Are All Biafrans. Follow him on Twitter @conumah
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