Ohaji/Egbema At Okorocha’s Golgotha
My average knowledge of the Holy Bible which is the greatest book for any practicing Christian carries a story about Golgotha in relation with the lives and times of our saviour Jesus Christ, (for those who are Christians like me). It is from the interesting but spiritual book of Christians that I heard about the word with cacophony of alphabets known as Golgotha.
In biblical times, Golgotha appeared as a place where Jesus Christ was crucified in between two thieves. Apart from the crucifixion of our saviour who died for our sake, Jesus was visited at the historical place with “no mercy” as it is a domain for tears and gnashing of teeth.
As a ruler with expected short comings inherent in leadership, the people of Ohaji/Egbema are undoubtably the “weeping child” of the Okorocha government that came into power on May 29, 2011. A comprehensive overview of the governor’s approach, relationship and handling of matters affecting the LGA shows that he has a slaughter ground for the oil rich and food basket council in the state.
How Ohaji/Egbema people who were vital and provided the lethal dose Okorocha used to emerge victorious during the historic May 6, 2011 Supplementary Election proceed to be at the governor’s killer range need not be over emphasized. But his recent diatribe which cast aspersions on the integrity of the people of the area especially the youths confirms that they are indeed in the dragnet of the Chief executive of the state.
At the yearly Synod of the Ohaji/Egbema Anglican Diocese, held recently at the Anglican Church, Mgbirichi, Ohaji, in Ohaji/Egbema, LGA, Okorocha while adducing reasons the area has not felt his acclaimed extension of dividends of democracy blamed the leaders and youths of the area. The Bishop, Rt Rev Collins Chidi Oparaojiaku, according to media reports held back nothing in intimating the governor that his government scored zero in Ohaji/Egbema as basic amenities like electricity and roads are lacking. In response, a rather befuddled governor while employing escapist tendencies shifted blame on the youths who he was alleged to have accused of indulging in certain unwholesome acts as a result of involvement in “Ogogoro” drinks and “Indian hemp” smoking. At that point, a pin drop silence was said to have been recorded at the church premises after the governor’s tantrums. But the media was awash with the stories and is yet to abate. Ogogoro is name for local gin while hemp is banned drug.
I am not competent enough to respond on behalf of the mocked youths of Ohaji/Egbema, but suffice it to note that this nondescript posture cannot be separated from the vexatious imprimatur of governor Okorocha whenever he handles the microphone. It would be recalled that one of the potential security issues threatening the continued unity of Nigeria is traceable to the state. The controversial issue of registration of non indigenes of a state has roots in Imo because those who witnessed and watched the orchestrated live broadcast of the public security meeting of the state presided by the governor at the newly opened, Imo International Conference Centre, IICC, Owerri, at the wake of the Winner’s Church Bomb Saga in Owerri, will understand better the origin of the issues of Northerners registration and who said it.
I will not blame the state governor for the unprintable statement he was reported to have made on that remarkable Sunday if some historical factors had not included Ohaji/Egbema people in the present state where they have turned to object of mockery and subjected to undue deprivation and marginalization by the government in power. Obviously, the late Nzeobi of Egbema ancient kingdom, HRM, EZe Sunday Uzor of blessed memory anywhere his soul is resting would be in tears that the seven Egbema communities he piloted to be part of Imo state at the creation of the state from the old Eastern Region in 1976, are undergoing maltreatment in the hands of those expected to have assuaged the people for using their rich natural resources to put Imo in the map of oil producing states of the country. A visit to Egbema towns in the neighbouring Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area of Rivers state will show the difference between Egbema in Imo and that in Rivers state. Same can be said of the forbearers of people in Awarra court area of Ohaji clan who had pre-colonial relationship with the Ekpeye people of Ogbaland. The Awarra Assa people, another oil rich territory but suffering serious underdevelopment as a result of neglect and exploitation has historical chronology that traces their origin to the present day Rivers State. It is not surprising that Ahoada, in Rivers state, appeared to have been like “Owerri” to them in the past. What of the Umuagwo, Umuapu, Mgbuisi and Obitti communities of Ohaji who are yet to lose and severe their Ikwerre -like type of culture, tradition and language.
Their fore fathers may have been cursing the day they decided to be part of present day Imo after filial relationship with their brothers of nearby Ikwerre communities of Apani, Ubima, Omerelu and Elele, that served more like the capital. Most of the elderly persons were either baptized in churches or traced their academic, and socio-cultural origins to the Ikwerre town in Rivers state. Coming down to Imo, with their precious black of gold and toga as the undisputed food basket of state, what is starring before the people is discrimination in terms of extension of democracy dividends worsened by Okorocha government. To further maltreat the vital council that provides utility resources, Okorocha eschewed decorum to pour invectives on the people in disguise for the failure of his Rescue Mission in the area.
Granted that previous administration may not have done much to take Ohaji/Egbema to El Dorado, but, the council has not had it so bad and neglected so far since Imo was created. The irony of the coming of Rescue Mission was that whatever that was gained in the past by the people of the area has been rubbished and carted away with impunity by the Okorocha government. Needless to recount orgy of deprivation meted to the people by governor Okorocha. Because some of the Rescue Mission misdemeanors on the people of the area can be ignored than the recent gratuitous insult which has left a deep scar on the mental psyche of the people. While the people are yet to overcome the humiliating excesses of the governor, more fiendish attacks are visited on Ohaji/Egbema.
More worrisome in the series of annihilation of Ohaji/Egbema people in Imo is the balkanization of Imo State Polytechnic, Umuagwo-Ohaji/in Ohaji/Egbema and eventual relocation of vital courses to the choice places of the governor under disguise of multi campus. Few years after Imo state was created, the state government took 380 hecters of land for purposes of establishing College of Agriculture in Umuagwo. Overtime it grew to become a full time Polytechnic in 2007, courtesy of the immediate past government. The people of Ohaji/Egbema heaved a sigh of relief that their underdeveloped land which state government acquired without adequate compensation and MOU will now be put into use. Even as the new-born Polytechnic was still at infant stage, Okorocha who is yet to appreciate the votes of Ohaji/ Egbema to his electoral fortune, began discreet moves to deny them that opportunity bequeathed to the people by the Ohakim government. Armed with “Carrot and Stick” tactics and employing “executive” savagery, Okorocha in connivance with few predatory office holders, perfected the inglorious agenda of visiting the people with misfortune by taking the school of Engineering to Orlu, a stone throw to his Ideato South homestead whereas Ohaji/Egbema is in Orlu zone, and part of School of Business Studies to Okigwe zone, to compensate another public office holder who okayed the exercise.
Meanwhile, the governor turned a blind eye to creation of Okigwe zone campus of Imo State University, that has a foundation multi campus system for the three zones, and the advertised establishment of the main/permanent site of IMSU in Owerri zone, which he set up a committee to pick, including his continued to maintenance of incriminating silence on the announce three universities for each of the zones. It would be recalled that at the wake of the planned relocation of IMSU to his Ogboko home town, spirited opposition from Owerri zone people forced Okorocha to make a volte-face to promise three varsities for the interest of the three zones in the new dispensation. What however became the sacrificial lamb to Imolites for that faulty step he took to announce the varsities was Ohaji/Egbema. One of the higher institutions that have cause to show for the people’s continued existence in Imo community, the Imo Poly, however was thrown open for scrambling and partitioning by celebral scavengers searching for any booty of office on assumption. Since they have succeeded in their multi campus plot for Imo Poly, having skewed their lick-spittle followers to back the action for “pot of porridge” in form of classless political appointments, the next stage is employing decoy by tagging youths of the area “Indian hemp” smokers and “ogogoro” drinkers, for allowing the balkanization of Imo Poly.
Ohaji/Egbema was the only LGA that operated two districts before the advent of Okorocha’s Rescue Mission because of the distance and location of the council secretariat at Mmahu Egbema, Umuokanne remained the district headquarters providing same services like the council secretariat at Mmahu.
But Okorocha thought otherwise and devised a means to further punish the people. Because of the council secretariat and district structure of running the LGA, it was only in Ohaji/Egbema that two general hospitals are found in one LGA in Imo State; one at Egbema and the other at Umuokanne, district headquarters, Ohaji. To the chagrin of the people, the Umuokanne General hospital that served the medical needs of Ohaji people was closed down and only what was left behind was mortuary, purposely kept to cater for numerous corpses of residents of the area who may have met their untimely death because of no available health service delivery centre. What Ohaji/Egbema now has is only one block work structure that its completion may take more years before it becomes operational and located in another place. Because the youths of the area have not employed civil process to protest this denial of General Hospital services, the Rescue Mission government feels the youths are drunkards.
Like I said earlier that I have no brief of the youths to react, it is, important to state that what Okorocha’s collaborators are shouting at the governor’s Golgotha where he ironically kept Ohaji/Egbema people, is “no mercy, no mercy” The Rescue Mission government may need to justify what it has done with billions of naira it has received so far from Federal Allocation on behalf of the oil rich council excluding the 13% derivation fund due to it as part of oil producing councils in the state with sister LGA, Oguta, permitted to Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, ISOPADEC. If Okorocha has excelled in road projects and other amenities, there is nothing in Ohaji/Egbema to show that the area is part of Imo state governed by our dear governor. There is no kilometer asphalted road. What the people is fed regularly from Rescue Mission is trade blames among Okorocha, his appointees and contractors.
Now, a new smokescreen has been identified as defensive tactics which is idea of shifting blame to helpless and defenseless youths of Ohaji/Egbema
In the same vein, Ohaji/Egbema has become the proverbial Aaron of the Holy Bible that went home empty handed in the sharing of the goodies arising from the leasing of multi million naira Adapalm palm oil plantations to a foreign firm, Roche. Without consultation to the Ohaji/Egbema landlords of Adapalm, the Okorocha government sold Adapalm to Roche for about 25 years and the money-making downstream sector which has been in the LGA when the governor was still a toddler, according to the Rescue Mission government, was exchanged with Roche for purposes of building Roche-type of precast building for schools in each of the 305 INEC wards in the state worth billions. While there are spots of these Roche pre-cast type of schools in some areas of Imo, non is existent in Ohaji/Egbema, the undisputed bird that lays the “Golden Egg” And because the youths are watching the plundering of their natural resources by suspected neo-imperialists, they have become vagabonds to the state governor.
What else can one say when the ISOPADEC that was created as an interventionist agency for the oil producing areas of Ohaji/Egbema and Oguta LGAs is going comatose without anything to show in Ohaji/Egbema for its existence in the past three years Okorocha came on board? Unlike in the past where presence of ISOPADEC was felt in the area, what Okorocha’s four years will have is only office block in Owerri built by someone not from ISOPADEC area and an abandoned white elephant project, called Marine University at Osemotor, Oguta. So where lies Ohaji/Egbema stake in ISOPADEC?
While the governor can be excused for the comment because he made available a whooping sum of N250m to youths of the area as empowerment which they perhaps used for the so called “Ogorogoro” consumption and “Indian Hemp” intake when government to provide proper skills acquisition and training workshop for the money, the ill manner, the N200m due to the area from FG’s N4000m for flood victims was utilized without questioning and resistance from the Ohaji/Egbema victims of the flood may have necessitated the comment. Instead of using the so-called N500m empowerment fund used as inducement to attract votes for Oguta youths for the Oguta Assembly bye- election, to offset debt to the power supply company, PHCN, the money was given out to merriment, while Ohaji/Egbema and Oguta remained in darkness
For the avoidance of doubt, it is necessary to state that no area in the state can be excused from the said consumption of ogogoro drinks and Indian hemp. Attributing such societal ills to only youths of Ohaji.Egbema is unexpected and unfortunate. One wonders where the governor obtained the statistics before the public speech. I will only remind the governor the reports credited to the state arm of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA) which informed to the beneficaries of the newsmen during the recent celebration of World Drugs Days that Mbaitolu tops in drug related case in Imo.
