MY WORRY FOR GOV. OHAKIM

The recalcitrant manner in which Rochas Okorocha is going about his campaign is very ignoble and unethical to the principles of equity and fairness. Few days ago I was opportune to listen to his interaction at Heart-land Fm radio in a popular programme, ‘Issues of the moment’ many guber candidates have hitherto featured. They have the chance to inform the electorate of their political manifesto and their other programmes which shall be of immense value to the society if elected. In this programme with profound and ignoble plucky Rochas said “I will send Senator Ifeanyi Ararume to Cameroun as a gentle man he will function well there as an Ambassador while Ohakim will be sent to Afghanistan as an Ambassador too….”

Kudos to Rochas for his “good intentions” which will be rewarded by the electorate on Saturday 16th of April 2011 when Rochas will be proved wrong by the people. I believe in destiny. I also believe in hard work and in the help of the divine. The great St.Teresa of Avila, who did big things with small means, once wanted to build a large orphanage. She had only three shillings to start with. Some friends told her that she should be wiser and wait for more funds before beginning the construction. This is the answer Teresa gave: “with three shillings Teresa can do nothing, but with God and three shillings there is nothing that Teresa cannot do.” In the philosophical words of Charles Morgan, “as knowledge increases, wonder deepens” I have come to the full knowledge of a high profile of political duplicity and hocus-pocus hitherto exercised by Imo guber aspirants.

I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being becomes blind and deaf for a few days at some time during election period. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight. Silence would teach him the joy of sound. Suffering will teach him the need to live in the nature of the common man. Today the absence of nothing is giving people hope of the presence of something. Imo people are not blind at all. We have eyes that can see. We appreciate nobility, praise good work and long for doing more in accordance with the principle of good leadership. Imo people love Ohakim, Ararume, and Rochas but like Socrates, “anyone who wants to move the world must first move himself.” We have all witnessed the promises of those who desire to govern us. Some have told us that they will construct roads that will join Imo state to America, few have said of buying private Jet to every Imolite. We know where they are coming from and their destination.

I am troubled so much because we live in a society where truth is upturned. A situation where nobody wants to obey the rule of law, not to talk of that of God. Truth has always faced persecution. Falsehood has gained popularity over many of us. A situation in which a sitting governor who has done what should qualify him for a second term is facing a high level of conspiracy induced by political acrimony which the opponents who do not have the interest of the people at heart initiated, is a bugaboo.

The world hate good things and like the popular saying “good things do not last”. However Christ reconfirmed the above thus, “And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light…” John 3:19. Today Ohakim who is the epitome and embodiment of light, who within four years have proved to Imo people that great men can achieve a lot even in the midst of troubles of litigation, is having the desire to do more. A good friend once told me that in one of their recent political meetings in APGA Imo state chapter they were highly impressed by the good leadership quality and the dividend of democracy hitherto delivered by the great governor Ohakim. As a result they told Rochas not to continue with his political (Rescue) ambition as Ohakim’s interest is to make Imo people happy through his New face programme. Rochas frowned at it and consequently made them believe that he will do better. The true side of the story is that this (APGA) political party is attesting to the fact that Ohakim is working very well to put smiles on the faces of Imo people. Rochas said he has not seen the construction of ultra-modern fly-over project going on in Imo state nor has he seen how clean Imo is. Well I am sure he has seen the good road leading to his (ogboko) village which Ohakim’s administration constructed. In the words of Socrates, “false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.” Let us tell ourselves the truth, philanthropy is not a mark of good leadership quality.

My worry is informed by the type of politics of rancour, bitterness and vicious calumny that is practiced by the opposition. Is this the way of moving Imo forward? Is this the way he will rule the nation if handed over to him come 2015 as he wishfully dreams? I’m very convinced that if Imo people are wicked, they will in no doubt ignore voting in Gov. Ohakim but as patriotic as we are, we know those who are out to hoodwink us through fake philanthropic activities as was captured by Benjamin Disraeli thus, “the greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him, his own”.

I was one of those who criticized the creation of 10, 000 jobs for Imo youths. But when it became obvious to the extent that my brothers and sisters benefited from it, many of us became ashamed. Ohakim’s administration that gave many of us food for thought due to unnecessary propaganda initiated by the opposition has today provided food on the table of the common man. Many roads are being constructed now; this administration has embarked on a lot of meaningful projects with positive impact on Imo people. Ohakim recently embarked on life affecting programmes like the 1 billion Naira youth empowerment programme and 3 billion Naira Agricultural loan for Imo farmers to mention a few. My worry is all the guber aspirants claimed not to have seen any of this projects. Now if either Ararume or Rochas among other contenders happens to win the election, what will happen to these projects? It is obvious that they will be abandoned. They will be allowed to die a natural death. This will be the major setback Imo will experience. This is one of the major causes of underdevelopment.

My worry is that if we fail to see things objectively we will certainly delay our development for another eight years. If in the end Ohakim wins, his fellow contenders should not distract him with much litigations as they did from 2007 to 2011, so that Imo will rank up with other developed states in Africa as Ohakim has promised to make Imo “a small London”. To those who will lose, I implore you to accept it with love and the spirit of sportsmanship because in the words of mother Teresa, “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle….” therefore take whatever happens as God’s wish and learn from your defeat because if you learn from a defeat, you truly have not lost anything. Napoleon Hill confirms the above thus, “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit.”

To governor Ohakim and like Nelson Mandela would say, “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” Well, I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness to fulfill the divine call to political service. Nature has taught me that courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. This is so because there is no brave man whose life is bereft of fear, yes, the brave man is not the man who has no fear but he who conquers his fear. And like Michael Faraday, “the important thing is to know how to take all things quietly”.

BY PROF. NATHAN UZORMA PROTUS

Owelle Rochas on Hostage or Rescue Mission in Imo?

For nearly three years now, the socio-political stature of lmo state has remained in deplorable condition, so have other states, Nigeria and almost every other nation- state in Africa. This is the general mentality of the common man in the concerned polities who everyday long for the advent of new things and who at the presence of the new things longed for reminisce about the past socio- political experiences and leaderships revolved by these anti-theses. This same reality has resulted in both pessimistic and optimistic views on the dreamt new things.

The pessimistic yearnings on new and ameliorated sitz in leben has the then bemused expression of Ayi Kwei Armah as benchmark for future critics on advents of new governments, or what Benson Omonede would call “Trying Another Leg”. According to Armah, “in the life of the nation itself, maybe nothing really new would happen. New men would take into their hands the power to steal the nation’s riches and to use it for their own satisfaction. That of course was to be expected. New people would use the country’s power to get rid of men and women who talked a language that did not flatter them. There would be nothing different in that. That would be a continuation of the Ghanaian way of life”. This forms the backbone of his theses that The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, and as a simulacrum, the good leaders are not yet born. All we have are the same people- The Ugly Ones. Our yearnings for new leaders are just for trying another leg.

This ideology seems anti-change, especially with his insistence that there is no difference between all old and new leaders, “no difference between all the white and their apes, the lawyers and the merchants, and now the apes of the apes, our Party Men. And after their reign is over, there will be no difference then. All new men will be like the old”. Yet, it bears in se, optimistic inclinations that characterise human rational sociality: Desire, yearnings, cravings, dreams, aspirations, etc (all in their grandeurs). The optimistic view is powered by the African mindset that anaghi ano otu uzo eti mmonwu (masquerade does not gyrate in a place, it strides), which essence is against the saying that old wine are tasty.

But we need to ask Ayi Kwei Armah what we should do in this circumstance. Do we just fold our hands and wait for the advent of the beautiful, the good? Or should we do away with the old fellows of our sort and specie? Perhaps, his answer might be no, because like his interlocutor, The Man said, what our leaders ought to do is to have attitudinal change, which concentrates on the commongood of the masses, and not to be backed up by the suffering masses themselves urging the erring leaders to speed up in the wrong directions like every other citizen.

Whether adjudged from the Armah’s purview or from the lived-reality, all our leaders are the same, they are from the same ugly generation; all the Imo gubernatorial candidates inclusive. No beautiful one is there because none has been born. The new comers in the terrain are in the same ugly generation of our rational sociality and zeitgeist. And just as Armah said, they are “men who know nothing about politics [who] have grown hot with ideology, thinking of the money that will come. The [retired] civil servant who hates socialism is there, singing hosanna. The poet [and novelist] is there, serving power and waiting to fill his coming paunch with crumbs. He will no doubt jump to go and shit on us. Everybody who wants speed goes there [into politics], and the only thing demanded of them is that they be good at fawning.”

In this category of politicians, new men are against the old, the incumbents. INEC has released 352 names of gubernatorial candidates in 26 out of 36 States of the Federation (in their website), Rivers having 28 as the highest, Imo 20 and Gombe State 6 as the smallest. Everyone comes against the old powers, for “change” and in Imo State for rescue mission. But according to Armah’s prediction, “for those who had [triumphantly] come against the old power, there would be much happiness. But for the nation [or state] itself, there would only be a change of embezzlers and a change of the hunters and the hunted”.

Informed by these, the Imo gubernatorial candidates have deployed and employed every possible means to get to the apex leadership seat of the State, their ugliness not withstanding. Inscriptions, calligraphy, bill-boards decorations and beautiful marks on campaign buses and posters, like orations and ovations at campaign grounds are no novelties in the Imo and Nigerian electoral stratagems. They are like the cyclic liturgical calendar of the hierarchical churches of European origin.

Inscriptions in campaigns ought to be innocuous and cryptic. My reflections since two months now have been driven to a focal point- the political inscriptions and brief campaign slogans of gubernatorial candidates in this forthcoming April polls, and have discovered their vagueness than cryptic or even innocuouss nature.

Take a look at the local journals and wake up your innate inquisitive eyes from slumber. Grab a copy of bi-daily and weekly journals or even bill boards and posters. You will see- Ohakim 2011 (Lets Do More!). The provocative questions that this aggravates in the minds of the oppositions are: What has he done the much to deserve more? Are they verifiable? If we give him our mandate, will he not just do only the more as he declares instead of giving us the superlative, which is our collective dream? Truthfulness and faithfulness to these questions set him on the gubernatorial seat again. But, is he (Gov Ohakim) the beautiful one to be born? No! He is ugly, the opposition will quickly respond. Although a second tenure for him is like the African mindset on reincarnation, in which the returning ancestor certainly swears and determines to come and live excellent and perfect existence in order to be accepted back in ancestry. This is evident in some good works hitherto initiated in Imo by Ohakim.

If you scan elsewhere in the same journal pages, you’ll see Araraume for Imo Governor 2011- (For a Better Imo!). This too provokes the mind more, especially when the gubernatorial candidate’s annals and past historic are reviewed. Has there been a Good Imo under him? Faced with this reality, one asks: What has he done ‘Good’ that guarantees the credence for the ‘Better’?

Mike Ejeagha, the Igbo Vocal Artist said that ‘a gucha otu, a guo abuo!’ Can he who could not count 1 (1999-2003) or count 2 (2003-2007) in the Senate, make a numeric leap to 3 without the initial springboard of 1 and 2? Can one ‘Go!’ without first being on his mass and getting set? What has he done the Good that satisfies our conscience or assures our hopes that he will arrive at the (comparative) Better? Are they verifiable? If we give him our mandate will he not give us the opposite of the Better he now speaks of, as he did during his double-tenured senatorial leadership? Sincerity and reassurance on this lost confidence in his leadership deliverability set him on the Imo apex seat. But let me ask, is he the beautiful one who is to be born? No! He is uglier. Although governorship for him is like the Platonian transmigration of souls- now from a lower ill-lived sphere of nature to a supra-rational nature of which he can never meet up.

Look elsewhere too, you’ll find Rochas for Governor Imo State (On a Rescue Mission!) This even is the worst. Its lack of comparative slogan shows his apprenticeship to the apex administrative political position. It shows lack of experience, neither good nor bad- a greenhorn-political aspirant. This reminds me of Ayi Kwei Armah’s bitter regret on the calibre of political aspirants that spring up in Africa, when he wrote: “men who know nothing about politics, have grown hot with ideology, thinking of the money that will come”.

Despite his pitiable pot of inexperience, the untrained civilian is going on rescue mission in a war front. Perhaps his return, a simulacrum of the lineage vacuity created by the “fallen heroes” of the Nigerian-Biafran war whom kiths and kin gave up hopes of rejoining their fraternity after 40 years of still absence.

The great problem here is not even the certainty of the lineage vacuum after the April Polls outing but the similarity of his On a Rescue Mission to the minion’s declarations engraved on stickers that are adhered on bikes, cabs and buses- God Is the Answer! (To which question?). Rochas’ On a Rescue Mission is suggestive of inexistent sitz in leben: Imo in Bondage, Imo a Hostage, Imo in Captivity, etc. This captivity-suggestive implies too, the bondsman status of the intending Imo Rescuer.

To rescue literary means to save somebody or something from a dangerous or harmful situation. While socio-political rescue entails first and foremost a captivity siz in leben; what Karl Jaspers called boundary situation, the extreme and poorest condition of living.

Going by this trash on the Rochasian rescue mission, an unbiased analysis must arrive at ‘Bad Governance’ as his intentional referent. But if the democratic rule of Governor Ikedi Ohakim has degenerated to the level of this referent, perhaps to tyranny or anarchy, the organs altogether involved in the principle of checks and balances in the State would have reacted to the purported deplorable situation. Yet, up till now there has been harmonious relationship between the three arms of government in the State right from the time the Executive Arm of Government was from the minority party.

Ingratitude certainly is the arriere-plan of this evident calumny; this causes the urge to try another leg. It is an eternal truth that just as the merchants and boutique owners in the Eke Ukwu Market Owerri, will never accept selling inferior or lower-grade items to customers, no gubernatorial aspirant will accept being incompetent in trying to lead the State. But cautious scepticism must be our disposition against the imminent deceit in these enthusiastic amateurs. The governorship seat is like a vessel, which being a dockyard staff does not qualify one to pilot, and no sane Harbour Master can approve a trial sail with a preciously loaded vessel.

I am not saying that we don’t need a rescuer. Certainly we do; perhaps, just as the Jews did, even though they hallowed and assassinated the God with them, notwithstanding his godsend status. Before one can lead he must pass through the hurdles of following, for no man can lead well when he hasn’t learnt the art of following and passed the hurdles of leadership-apprenticeship.

Every self-imposed rescuer, leader or judge surely has the possibility of answering the Mosaic question- ‘Who made you to be prince over us and judge? (Ex. 2:14)’. Every gubernatorial rescuer in Imo State is welcomed but let the rescuer not be Prophet Hananiah to Imolites (who prophesied contrary to Prophet Jeremiah’s words, and broke the wooden yokes of the exiled Israelites only to provoke God’s imposition of an iron yoke of enslavement (Jer. 28:1-17). Rochas’ rescue mission is pre-emptively Hananian.

Leadership is like God’s favour and the emergence of Gov Ikedi Ohakim is like that of King David against whom Jesse made pass his seven sons and none was favoured except the haggard wilderness boy-shepherd, David (1 Sam 16:1-13). Like King David, Ohakim is the Governor after God’s own heart. He has his favours and where there is favour, much toil is not needed. The intimidating height and appearance of the biblical Eliab (son of Jesse) did not make the oil in Samuel’s horn flow. This is analogous to the gubernatorial choice of Gov Ohakim. Giants in the history of the world have been constantly defeated by underrated heroes.

All over the world, and in the present day democracy, nowhere have giants and the richest ruled. The most affluent do not rule instead they sponsor those with leadership charisma- the Philosopher Kings. Aliyu Dangote is a million times richer than Rochas Okorocha, yet he maintains his huge height in the field of life where he excels and is gifted. That Owelle Rochas Okorocha is a renowned philanthropist is an adorable reality but that his philantropism is the criterion to govern Imo State is pure fallacy. If philantropism gives such qualifications, St JohnBosco, Blessed Luigi Guanella, Blessed Chiara Bossata, Blessed Thomas M aria Fusco and Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta, to mention but a few renowned, top-notch and world-class philanthropists of our zeitgeist, would have become Presidents of their countries, Roman Catholic Bishops and Popes or Heads of the Vatican Nation-City.

Mother Thereasa of Calcutta of the blessed memory travelled all over the world without visa and flight fees but her holiness, charity-charisma and philantropism did not make her consecrate Holy Communion for Catholics or assume clergy. Philantropism like holiness is different from a State’s apex leadership position (or the priesthood). While the occupier of the Governorship Seat can tomorrow turn a philanthropist, if he so desires, the philanthropist can never have such smooth personality-transmutation to the Governor’s seat.

But let me ask, is Rochas that beautiful one who is to be born? No! He is even the ugliest. But a good start from the lower cadre of elective leadership position certainly gives his palpable neophyte status a balanced swift sail and possible landslide victory in an apex leadership position like the one he is now eyeing or the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly. Certainly, he will be a good prospective gubernatorial candidate and possible-winner of the seat in Imo State after passing through lower leadership cadres for apprenticeship. But, who does not eye heaven? Everyone desires heaven, even sinners, the atrocious and the depraved do. Recently Rochas apologized to Imo people over his ugly comment of condescending so low to rule Imo.We all know that it was his arrogance that made him lost 1999 chance of being a governor. Is unfortunate that in this twenty-first century Rochas has promised restoring Okada if he wins, dissolve and probe LG council, re-conduct LG polls, review the so-called 10, 000 jobs as government can’t afford to pay to mention but a few. Imo people shine your eyes!

That Rochas or Araraume promised Imolites scholarship from Primary to Secondary School does not make the incumbent Gov Ohakim incapable of or neglect such as an essential want of his people. Rochas first promised it, Araraume followed and added more but certainly the people-conscientious Governor must as a matter of priority give Imolites the sum of Rochas and Araraume’s scholarships and even exceed them with an “un-leap-able chasm”, as it has been in his 2011 agenda ever since he declared his intention to run for a second term. Free education is a State’s philanthropic policy, which any government can declare after making strategic arrangements for its success and operations, and not a charismatic quality for leadership or for rescuing prophets (not sent by God like Prophet Hananiah) to erode and deceive Imolites who here are the arnawims (the remnants of the Israelites). Imolites tending to Rochas or to any gubernatorial candidate for rescue must first discern the Hananiah from the Jeremiah.