It has been reported that Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji of Abia State has emerged the Chairman of the South-East Governors Forum in a meeting said was held by the governors from the zone on March 9, 2014.

The position which the Anambra State governor, Mr. Peter Obi, holds as the current chairman, Orji would take over the position as soon as Obi’s tenure as governor expires this March.

I’m not sure of the rationale in giving Orji the position. If the selection was on the fang that he has handled Abia State well, then that decision should be revisited. Even, there was no test that should have qualified the governor to be exalted to that position when it’s a known fact that he has failed his state abysmally.

Why there are many critics of Orji-led government of Abia State is not only that he has failed as a governor, but that he has also refused to rise up in the many times he has been told that he failed. He would do the same as the South-East Governors Forum Chairman.

He has never bothered to brush up the many nuisances that characterise Abia State, without any forms of humbling experiences to learn from his lifestyle. The governors of the South-East have disappointed our expectation, even in the absence of none before.

With the emergence of Orji as the chairman of the forum, there is every expectation of a bumpy ride for President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 in the zone, because Orji is seen as a bruised governor riding on a very bumpy ride.

There has never been satisfaction in the leadership of Orji in Abia State. If the pro-Jonathan governors in the zone focused on the fear of not losing the zone hence they gave Gov. Orji that position, they have multiplied anger in the minds of people and eventually have paralysed the zest people had in the Forum and in Jonathan.

Gov. Orji has no power to change things. It hurts that those who made him the chairman did not see outside the box. A leadership position needs a person who have disciplined him or herself very well, but this is not Gov. Orji.

I’m afraid that the South-East Governors Forum has commenced to live a life of unvarying apprehension with Gov. Orji as the head, instead of a life of wondrous anticipation. The governors who selected Orji in South-East to lead them have selected failure and this forum may no longer go the way they want.

The South-East governors have selected a trouble that will suck them into oceans of damage. Gov. Orji is known as a man who swims against the current, always throwing a tantrum. The choice of Gov. Orji is a flight to negative way.

He takes more credit than he is due. And the South-East Governors Forum is headed to become bankrupt for having invested this heavily in the Gov. Orji’s fictional way of governing as governor. He is one politician that I have seen who said that he was beefing up Abia State economy, whereas he does not “know beef from pork”.

With him as chairman of the South-East Governors Forum, the forum has lost lovers of wisdom, but gained a lover of power and unmerited praise. And if it is possible for people to change their zones, I am very sure that many in the South-East would have started that with the emergence of Gov. Orji as the leader of their different governors.

The forum should know that it has lost a fortune by giving Gov. Orji its chairmanship. It would have been good if the position was left vacant instead of Orji. The forum has unleashed on itself poverty of leadership.

The South-East Governors Forum should not make us believe that it is a forum for hustlers. If everyone should get to the podium, Gov. Orji should not have been among them. He has not done anything in Abia State and has stopped on trying to do them.

This is a titular taking office. This is a man who has made politics which was supposed to be the second-profession, his first and last profession. The South-East Governors Forum has failed to diagnose politically the person of Governor Ahamefule Orji before giving him such a position.

I weep for Ndigbo!

•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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