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 Peoples 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 centre 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 polices. 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 youth 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 18,
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, on allegation 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 succour. 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 14, 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 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
fulfilment.” 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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