A fortnight, a lecturer with the Abia State Polytechnic called and was weeping. I thought that he had lost somebody. Although I had not met with the caller in person, but on enquiring why he was crying, he told me that could I imagine that lecturers in the school have not been paid their salaries for seven months.

I had thought that he was in for something, till my confirmation from another source proved him right. I also found out that it’s not only the workers of the Abia State Polytechnic that were sharing in the ugly banquet that Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji of the state has made them to be gulping – those in other areas were not saying the contrary.

The definition of the word democracy in the Gov. Orji-led government of Abia State is not different from the theory and practice of nepotism, capitalism and despotism. Only the few who are favoured in the state through these means see Gov. Orji as a performing governor, to the perils of the majority impoverished populace of Abia State.

These few people see themselves as being empowered and are bent on fighting the majority, when they cry out loud that the present government has brushed their lips on the bare ground. If this is the way that the late Dr. M.I. Okpara operated, whom Gov. Orji, according to an account, said that he is emulating, no one would be remembering the great man from Igbo land in the polity, with showiness and spectacle.

History says that the late Okpara was a humble and focused man, who was accentuated by the love of humanity in carrying out his duties, unlike what Abia State has got in Gov. Orji: Defocused, bickering, tinkering, bigotry, egocentrism and a host of queer attitudes to governance.

History holds Okpara as selfless man, unlike the selfish person that Abia people have in their governor. Dr. Okpara lived a life worth emulating and many people are emulating him today. But Gov. Orji, without doubt, will have the contrary history by posterity, to Okpara’s.

Many people in the state, who are diplomatically opposed to the negativism called governance in Abia State, are relocating with their loved ones, due to incessant threats to their lives. Their safety in Abia State is no longer guaranteed; this writer is one of the people, threatened and scandalised by government agents in many appalling ways, but the people of Abia State know the truth, from the heap of lies that the government and its agents have been peddling around.

The editor of The City Reporters, in a forum, said that there was pressure by his beloved ones recently to be very careful and watchful anywhere he went, because they allegedly got information of an impending plan to kidnap the editor. The editor said that the government of Gov. T.A Orji was apparently against him because he published, amongst others, that Abia State debt under the stewardship of Gov. Orji rightly stood at $34.5m, but the government in 2010, collected a bond of $250m, aside having monthly revenue and allocations which stood at N19bn.

Abia State is in shambles for seven years of Gov. Orji’s perfidiousness and aberration, yet he is gearing up for the senate in 2015, when workers in the state, instead of celebrating thankfully, are celebrating seven months of dishonesty and ridiculousness of the government which is with-holding their salaries.

Unlike what George Orwell said that people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf, Abia people are gnashing their teeth day and night with their eyes opened at night under the Gov. Orji-led government because the governor has refused to perform or allow the people to rest, without prejudiced imposition of levies and taxes on them.

Except the few Abia people in the Abia State Government, who are ‘enjoying’ the lucre of governance, many outside the government will not like their God to bless them with the hand that the governor is governing the state with. Majority of the people see telling the truth as a “revolutionary act” than a “rewarding act” especially in this season of mis-governance in the state and Everest of deceit.

Ask any meaningful Abia person to define the government of Gov. Orji and the person will say without fear or favour that the government surrounds itself with neophytes who speak from all sides of their mouths.

Imagine that it is said that each of the state House of Assembly members collects N5m every month and none is being owed. It will be expedient that Gov. T.A. Orji saves Abia State the shame of holding workers’ salaries for seven good months, still counting, without an iota of addressing this issue in the near future.

Gov. Orji should listen to what George Orwell said: If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever... and politics itself a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

•Odimegwu Onwumere, a Poet/Writer, writes from Rivers State. He can be reached via apoet_25@yahoo.com. Photo shows Governor T.A.Orji.

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