By Charles S Uzoukwu
It’s very unfortunate that Nigerians are wont to blame Europeans for all our woes, absolutely condemning colonialism and the 1914 Amalgamation of the North and South for our political woes, economic impoverishment, unemployment and inability to exploit our God-given natural resources. Blinded by sentiments, we fail to learn important lessons on leadership, commitment and sincerity in public service from the so-called colonialists. Yet, these virtues still drive their public and private lives till date, while the absence of such virtues is the bane of our underdevelopment and failure of leadership.
The question Mr Peter Obi asked of Anambra in 2007 is more relevant to Abia today: “Are we cursed or we are the cause?” This is a state which the first civilian governor, the amiable Dr Ogbonnaya Onu christened God’s own State, even though he did not leave a record of probity, Abia has degenerated beyond expectations of we the indigenes and even other Nigerians. From 1999 to 2015 the state witnessed the worst form of sleaze and spiritual descent. This must have given the immediate past administration the audacity to stop a popularly elected governor, without any question mark in his victory record, from querying dubious activities of his predecessor.
How else can one explain a situation where a citizen of a state appointed or elected to serve his or her state should contemplate looting part of the property of government knowing fully well that someone else is coming to take over that office just as he or she inherited same facility.
Unfortunately, this mindset is nationwide as shown by certain developments in recent times. First, when the court restored Osun State PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke’s mandate last year, he complained of looting of government properties, which the governor denied. In Benue State, the APC the newly elected governor has been vociferous in his complaint of seizure of government assets by the outgone PDP administration. And even at the National Assembly, newly elected senators complained of meeting empty offices which led to the release of N70 billion from the executive to enable them “settle.”
But the situation in Abia State was actually horrific given the magnitude and class of officers involved in the looting of government assets. Unfortunately for them, they are dealing with a new party, a liberation team whose emergence was a combination of Divine intervention and the peoples’ verdict depicting their reaction to the 2015 travesty of justice. In fact, the general feeling is that of enough of the Peoples Democratic Party’s 24 years of mis-governance, ineptitude, gross incompetence and a succession of irredeemably corrupt regimes. The extent of looting was as if Labour Party (LP) victory was the invasion of a foreign army, which is also reflected in the immediate past governor’s reaction to the idea of setting up a panel of enquiry to investigate such questionable conduct.
Before the inaugural sitting of the Judicial Panel of Enquiry on the Recovery of Government Properties and Funds belonging to Abia State Government with an appeal for members of the public to come forward with petitions and memoranda to assist the panel perform accordingly on August 15, ex-governor Okezie Ikpeazu had already gone to Abuja in search of an exparte motion to stop Governor Alex Otti from taking the initiative. However, chairperson of the panel, Justice Florence Duruoha-Igwe (rtd), made things clear from inception that the panel, “though quasi-judicial, is not a court and would work with petitions and memoranda supplied to it as well as give proper advice and recommendations to the governor.”
Almost two weeks to the inauguration, precisely on August 1, there were media reports that “a Federal High Court in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, has granted an exparte order restraining the Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Recovery of Government Properties and Funds set up by Governor Alex Otti of Abia State from investigating former Governor Okezie Ikpeazu and officials who served under his administration.” Justice E. Okpe was said to have granted the injunction “after an application for an exparte motion was brought before him by counsel to Ikpeazu and three other applicants, Mr C Enuka.”
A popular English adage says that a clear conscience fears no accusation. Granted, hardly any Nigerian public servant, especially political office-holders, can lay claim to a clean conscience while in service. But, why did the former governor and his men fail to follow the path of decent handover to the incoming administration? Otti’s victory under the platform of Labour Party should not have come to them as a surprise given that we all witnessed the travesty of the 2015 governorship election that brought Dr Okezie Ikpeazu into office. If he had done well as governor, why did his own people of Abia South dash his senatorial ambition in preference for an APGA candidate who defected from PDP? He should have known that Otti being a tested banker, manager of men and has a track record of accountability and would follow the path of rectitude. Ikpeazu and his co-travellers had enough time to have gathered enough for themselves in eight years without the last minute plundering and conversion of government property. If they were going to equity with clean hands, which is natural justice, why did they express so much fear of repercussions of their shameful act? Even a casual glance at their prayer confirms their guilt.
It read: “Order of interim injunction restraining the Respondents…from inviting, summoning, interrogating, harassing, intimidating, arresting, detaining, seizing any property belonging to the Applicants or otherwise dealing adversely in any manner with the Applicants, their children, any member of their families or any other person connected to the Applicants insofar as it relates to the Applicant’s tenure as public officers in the Abia State Government between 2015 – 2023, pending determination of the substantive Originating Motion on Notice.” What a brilliant petition by their counsel, but justice cannot be sacrificed on the altar of emotion.
And, although the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Ikechukwu Uwanna, regretted that Abia has witnessed a lot of looting and noted that it was only by addressing these issues that the state would begin to make progress, which is the truth about the Abia situation given the history of the successive Peoples Democratic Party administrations since 1999. Nonetheless, Panel chair, Duruoha-Igwe, reassured that the quasi-judicial inquiry shall exercise all its powers which include summoning anybody in Nigeria in a bid to discharge its duties, and would not carry on as if they have already targeted and branded anybody as guilty.
As the attorney-general averred, it is important and timely that such ugly trend is addressed if Abia must move forward. We agree with the appeal to the public to provide necessary information that would facilitate the assignment of the Panel as requested by the Chair, who added that they are also mandated to:
“Receive and examine complaints and memoranda from individuals and other entities on the looting or conversion of government property, funds, and related matters, and where necessary make recommendations to the government for remedial measures or any other measure as appropriate. To examine and ascertain whether the government’s moveable or immoveable assets and funds have been illegally acquired or occupied or converted to private use, and identify the person who is responsible and further make recommendations for recovering and appropriate sanctions.”
Giving the scarcity of land for medium and large scale developmental projects and the ease of acquisition, it is noteworthy that the governor extended the work of the Panel to ascertain the extent of allocations and revocations of lands in Abia State from May 2015 to May 2023 and determine the propriety of such allocation or revocation or otherwise, including a review of the award and execution of contracts from May 2015 to May 2023, and ascertaining if they were in conformity with extant laws.
Decades of mass exodus of business people from Aba has affected the economy of this great city and the state. However, it seems the prayer of Aba people has been answered. So Abians want to see the Aba that made Nigerians proud in the economic community of Africa, the Aba where the ingenuity of the people pushes everyone into creative modes that makes us what we are.”
Let all well-meaning Abians arise and join the redemption train of Governor Otti and the Labour Party for a comprehensive reconstruction and restoration of our dear God’s own State from the wreckage of the past 24 years.
*Uzoukwu writes from Abuja
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