War of Words Between Obiano And Okorocha: A Fallout Of Failed Governance And Leadership In The Southeast Zone


(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: [email protected]
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
For: Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs)

1.    Comrade Aloysius Attah (+2348035090548)
For: Civil Liberties Organization, Southeast Zone

2.    Comrade Peter Onyegiri (+2347036892777)
For: Centre for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy

3.    Comrade Samuel Njoku (+2348039444628)
For: Human Rights Organization of Nigeria

4.    Engineer Rufus Duru (+2348037513519)
For: Global Rights & Development International

5.    Comrade Chike Umeh ( +2348064869601)
For: Society Advocacy Watch Project

6.    Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq. (+2348034186332)
For: Anambra Human Rights Forum

7.    Comrade Alex Olisa(+2348034090410)
For: Southeast Good Governance Forum

8.    Jerry Chukwuokoro, PhD (+2348035372962)
For: International Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights Initiative

9.    Mr. Tochukwu Ezeoke (+447748612933)
For: Igbo Ekunie Initiative (Pan Igbo Rights Advocacy Group)

10.    Comrade Vincent Ezekwume (+2348171793911)
For: Civil Liberties Organization, Anambra State Branch
War of Words Between Obiano And Okorocha: A Fallout Of Failed Governance And Leadership In The Southeast Zone War of Words Between Obiano And Okorocha: A Fallout Of Failed Governance And Leadership In The Southeast Zone Reviewed by Unknown on Wednesday, February 08, 2017 Rating: 5

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