I want to remind (or probably educate) our governor, Rochas
Okorocha, that empires never last; they usually self-destruct. Let him go back
to history and refresh his memory- the Roman Empire, the first and second French Empire, the German
colonial Empire, the British Empire, the Japanese; these used to be forces to
reckon with in their time of rule. For
any of these that still exist, they are a just a figment of what they used to
be, both in resources and influences. Reason is that no man (or men) was ever created
to cower under the oppression of another. Whenever he takes more than he can
absorb, he rebels. Usually, it is bad for the oppressor. Aside the fact that
slavery was going out of trade and a lot of people were speaking out against
that evil, slave masters and plantation owners would tell you that it was
getting increasingly expensive to quell slave uprisings. The French revolution, a people's attempt to
be free from social and economic oppression, would also serve to refresh his
memory.
You know, Rochas got there and started suffering from amnesia.
Of course, it has to be; if not how could he quickly forget how the people of Imo
fought to see him become the governor? The story goes that some people refused
to sleep and bathe for some three days or more to ensure that the election would
not be rigged. It was an election victory that was celebrated beyond the
borders of the sit. Now, he sits upon his throne and carries on with his agenda
of oppression and frustration.
When he first came, he was the apple of our eyes. We believed
our savior had come. He began to build roads; soon after the stories of suicides
followed: Of how contractors would borrow huge sums from banks to construct roads
and then our dictator would refuse to pay them. They thereafter commit suicide because
the sums were much more than they could ever pay. A lot of us dismissed them as
fabrications. Not long after, these same roads built by our messiah began to practically
disintegrate. Now, the state of roads in Orlu and Umuguma are worse off than
they used to be before Rochas began his road constructions. MCC, formerly a clean
and well tarred road is now a mess. The same can be said of Weathral, Amakohia and
several roads in the state before he began his road expansions. He begins to
build a road, abandons it and goes to another. The road contractors begin to
dig drainages along a street, they begin from a point, jump some distance,
continue to dig; as such the drainages are not continuous and so water logs all
the time in our drainages. Mosquito breeding is now on an outrageous level. Everywhere
is dirty and stinks. It is now like the case of a mad man.
Nobody expects a messiah in a governor. However, every
leader should be able to contribute their bit and make things a little better
than they met it. Rochas has destroyed the beautiful and clean city we used to
have. The worst is that people outside Imo assumes that we are living in
heaven. I have a friend who would die defending Rochas. Yet, he lives in Abuja.
How many people have the emergency response centers helped? How many people has
he gainfully employed? How many roads did he build that are still in good
standing? How many hospitals did he build in the different LGAs in Imo are functioning?
(Can someone please educate our dictator that empty structures are never called
hospitals. Buildings become hospitals when there are medical personnel, medical
supplies and equipments, and all other auxiliary staff required to make a
hospital run effectively.) How many skill acquisition sites built in his wife's
name are functioning? How many roads, road dividers, and artificial fountains
has he built and destroyed because he wants to build something else? How many
structures has he built that are unused in Imo in State? If you come to IHOP,
you see a lot of unused halls constructed. The Imo shopping mall that was constructed
with mullions of naira lies there in waste. Our governor is busy but doing what?
He is spending tax payers' money on useless constructions upon constructions. "Rochas
is working."
So then, our governor in his first tenure makes education
free up to tertiary level. In what part of the world is university education
free? How do you fund such an unrealistic project?
A few months ago, he embarks on expanding bank road. So he
breaks down the fountain falls at government house junction, breaks down all
the road dividers, and breaks down all the walls of the banks along the road. Didn't
he know he would expand that road before spending millions to build the fountain
falls, the Douglas souvenir building that is now being destroyed by rainfall
and the road dividers? Oh yes, Imo is now in the hands of a mad man who wakes
up today and feels like breaking down a street, he goes ahead and does that. Tomorrow,
he feels like building it and does just that. No plan, just wastes upon wastes.
Now, he's done expanding the road, the traffic situation along that road is even
poorer. People drive recklessly because the road is too wide and they are trying
to maneuver the numerous potholes. Banks can't even put up their walls to reinstall
their ATMs because the confused government who razed down their walls is asking
them to pay a huge sum before reconstructing them. Is something not terribly
wrong?
Why is everyone quiet? The state house of assembly members
and state commissioners are just ghosts. They don't exist. We don't know if Imo
state has such officers. In fact many people do not know the name of the deputy
governor of the state. The voices of the Ezes (kings of autonomous communities)
of the lands have been mysteriously silenced.
No one coughs. We only know our governor and the chief of staff who was formerly
the commissioner for works, Uche Nwosu, the governor's son in-law. The moment
he was made commissioner for works, all the C of O's in our state were revoked.
So people began to pay again for properties that were already theirs. Once he
was done enriching himself through that glorious project, he became the chief
of staff. Praise God! And even so, each Christmas, while workers are hungry,
our dictator spends hundreds of millions on street decorations and concerts. In
fact, the only time I heard about the speaker of the house was sometime in the
news, on YouTube actually, where I watched him shield our dictator as a Biafra
protester hurled insults at him. Of course, he wasn't speaking anything as the speaker
of the state house; he was doing the job of a security man. What can he say,
when the dictator has sealed everyone's lips? There are no projects being done
by the commissioner of works, or of education, or of youths and sports, or of
any office for that matter. All we know is that "Rochas is working."
You see, we are Africans. We are people of traditions and cultures.
There are markets, market days or particular structures that are symbolic to us.
Thus, our dictator without consulting the community, decides to relocate an age
long market to a new unfinished and swampy site, where a woman who sells pepper
along the road will rent a shop from his government or pay two million to buy it, not forgetting the numerous
market levies that would be introduced. The worse part of it is that new market
isn't even fully constructed and has a very serious issue of water logging.
While in the keke on the Sunday morning after the demolition, a young man said
that the demolished market is not in the master plan of the state and I nearly
ate him alive. So what is the in the master plan? The hunger and frustration he
daily causes people in this state? The potholes ridden roads? The floods? The
haphazard drainages that are causing floods in this state? The indigenes who extorts
from people under his watch? The continual slashing of salaries? The continual
bringing down and reconstruction of structures irrelevant to people's sufferings?
The comatose state of our school, legal and health systems in Imo? Which is in
the master plan? This is a repeat of what took place when he began to destroy
buildings last year to construct roads. We began to hear of suicide and the
resultant increased crime rate. My hearts bleeds for our people.
I do not blame our sons and daughters who are still in his employ-
especially the funny road contractors ( oh yes, they are funny. You need to see
what they do in the name of road construction). I blame hunger and lack of employment.
It's now a case survival. A contractor who haven't had a contract all year
accepts to bring down people's source of livelihood or begin to construct a
gutter he knows he would stop midway and thereby creating breeding sites for
mosquitoes. I hail all of them as I hail the dictator. When we are asked to
pray for leaders like him, I just know that prayers are wasted on him.
But just like I said earlier, let him go refresh his memory;
Hitler finally went home. People get tired at some point. Empires crash. We have
an Igbo proverb which says, “if one person cooks for the community, the
community can finish the food but if the community cooks for one person, he can
never finish the food." Let him take purgatives. People and history will
serve him food one day.
scriptwriter87@gmail.com
Twitter/Instagram: @club7teen
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