History
of leadership in Africa is replete with dramatis personae whose roles and
dynamics accorded them nomenclatures other than those they had originally been
named by their parents. A few example would suffice. Before the examples, it
may be necessary to state that these names or titles evolved as a result of the
circmstances prevalent at a given time, which nececcitated the emergence of
such a leader. In Ghana, formerly known as Gold Coast, colonialism and
imperialism had combined to subject her citizens to a various degree of
exploitation. They had expected that their traditional rulers and Dr. Joseph B.
Danquah; being the most prominent indigeneous political activist at that time,
would have come to their rescue. But this was not to be. When, however, Dr.
Kwame Nkrumah appeared on the scene, with a clear vision of what he wanted for
his people, which, ofcourse, was total liberation and engaging in activities
that would lead to his imprisonment before becoming leader of Government
Business and later President of Ghana, the Ghanians named him ‘The Osagyefo;
meaning ‘The Redeemer’. In Tanzania, due to circumstances not too strange to
those of Ghana, Dr. Julius Nyerere was known as ‘The Nwalimu, meaning ‘The
Teacher’ and ofcourse, he taught his people the methodology of emancipation
from bondage. Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya fought, unabatedly, for the independence
of his people and became known as Mzee. The most iconic African figure of moral
authority; our own highly reverred Dr. Nelson Mandella is known all over
South-Africa and, indeed, the world over as ‘Madiba’. It could, therefore,
follow that for any nomenclatural suffic attached to a leader, such a title
must have its philosophical undertone and circumstantial originality.
In
God’s own State of Abia, the incumbent Governor, Chief (Sir) Theodore Ahamefule
Orji, has an appellation that is known as ’Ochendo’. I do not think I may be
wrong to assume that this title has gone beyond Abia. This is because a title
that is associated with a sitting Governor and has appeared in more than one
thousand publications; in the print and electronic media and globally via the
internet, cannot be said to be restricted to a geographical environment.
Ochendo has, therefore, assumed a very wide usage both within and outside Nigeria.
As
may not completely be ruled out, many persons who call Ochendo may not have
borthered to ask what the meaning of Ochendo is. Basically, Ochendo is an Igbo
word which translates to protection and defence of life. It could be protection
against the vagaries of weather, harsh socio-economic conditions or inhumanity
arising from man against man. In a literary simplified sense, the umbrella, rain-coat,
rain-booth, various forms of generosity, philanthrophy, liberation and defence
symbolize Ochendo or as I have always preferred to put it; ‘Ochendoism’.
That
Ochendoism has been meaningfully popular and acceptable in Abia State must
suggest that it has its philosophical significance in the socio-econo-political
existentiallism of the people of the state.
From
a pragmatic point of view, it has to be stated that for the collectivity of the
above components of Ochendoism to be manifest in the practicality of the
philosophy, the principles of collectivism, reconcilliation, justice which
incorporates equity, security and peace, economic integration that does not
exclude agricultural development, intellectual foundation, commercial
enterprise that is not isolated from skill acquisition, effective public
service mechanism and equally importantly, synergy between government and the
private sector and also co-operation with religious leaders. Ochendoism, from a
critical appreciation, has manifested positively in all the social, economic
and political firmaments of the Abia dynamics.
Before
Governor T. A. Orji’s emergence, the state was devastatingly torn into
factions; the major gladiators being the home-based politicians and the Abuja
domicilled Abia politicians. There was no love lost between the two. The result
of this avoidable rancour was that the State became the victim. But Governor T.
A. Orji, being a seasoned tecnocrat and bureaucrat, did not need to consult any
oracle to realize that such a cat and dog relationship, if not radically
resolved, would continue to constitute a clog on the wheel of the progress of
the State. Ochendo quickly reconcilled all the warring factions in the state
and, without hesitation, gave every Abia his or her right. The only personality
that was inevitably left out in the reconcilliation agenda was the former
Governor, whom every well-meaning Abian knows as a man whose interest and
ambition are the exact antithesis of collectivism and progress.
Today,
Abians speak with one voice, with coherence that means peace arising from
equity. Nobody or section, within the frame-work of Ochendoism, complains of
marginalization or inequity. To make sure that people conduct their legitimate
trades or business uninhibited, the Government of Chief T. A. Orji, spurred by
the philosophy of Ochendoism, has practically made seucrity of lives and
property a top priority. There is no iota of exaggeration to say that,
contemporarilly-speaking, Abia State has emerged from a volatile security state
to one of the most secured states of the Nigerian Federation.
As
a state, Abia has one of the lowest Federal allocations, despite being an
oil-producing state. Before the election of Chief T. A. Orji as Governor,
transparency had nothing to do with the financial management of the state.
While the former Governor could, as a sitting Governor, buy an Ocean-going
vessel and name it after his daughter and even had the temerity of inviting a
sitting President to launch the ship at Port-Harcourt, an invitation the
President unmistakably turned down, Ochendo is not given to quest for
materialism and has, so far, managed the financial fortunes of the state so
prudently and transparently that Abia State has been, undeniably, proclaimed by
no mean an institution than the National Assembly as one of the few financially
healthy states of the Federation. The philosophy of Ochendoism dictates that
the State Government and her indigenes cut their coat according to their cloth
and not according to their size. Hence the government of Abia State, under
Ochendo, has not borrowed money either internally or externally. Ochendoism
implies that the successor of Governor T. A. Orji will not be encumbered by an
avalange of inherited debts.
In
the same vein, Ochendoism demands that the morale of the public servants in the
state should be high. This is why, no sooner had Chief T. A. Orji emerged as
Governor, than every public servant was automatically promoted to the next
salary grade level. The history of public service in Nigeria places Ochendo as
the First Governor to display this uncommon generosity. It is equally in this
direction that the government pays twenty thousand and one hundred naira as
minimum wage to her workers even when the Federal Government has legislated
eighteen thousand naira as minimum wage. The morale-boosting agenda of the
governor for Abia workers does not end at their wages. The government has gone
further to enhance their environmental cum psychological affectation by
building a modern secretariat complex for them, reconstructing and refurbishing
existing dilapidated offices.
Ochendoism
places much emphasis on the educational development of the state. Primary and
Secondary education are tuition-free in state-owned institutions. Many of the
Schools in the state were built before the Nigerian-Biafran war and have,
therefore, become dilapidated. The government of Chief T. A. Orji has been
unrelenting in her determination to renovate such school buildings and also
build new structures. The Abia State government, inspite of her financial
inadequacies, occupies the top-most echelon in the ranks of state governments that
own and effectively run tertiary institutions. Under Ochendo, the state
government has efficiently coped with the numerous challenges associated with
the various compuses of the Abia State University, the rapidly growing Abia
State Polytechnic at Aba, the Abia State College of Education (Technical) at
Arochukwu and the Abia State College of Health at Aba. These Institutions of
higher learning engulp enormous resources of the state yet the philosophy of
Ochendoism fires the state Government on.
The
philosophy underneath Ochendoism places emphasis on self actualization. To this
effect, the government has been motivating agricultural practices. Not too long
ago, the state government doled out a one billion naira interest-free loan to
genuine farmers in the state. The government has been encouraging profitable
development of her palm-plantations, cocoa plantations, rubber plantations,
cassava farms and animal husbandry, including fishery. Liberation farms are
springing up.
Traders
are being encouraged by providing them with large modern markets at Ndume-Ibeku
and Ubani-Ibeku. Old markets in the state such as Ariaria International Market,
Ekeoha Shopping Centre, Ngwa Road Market, Ohabiam Electronics Market and Ehere
Market, all in Aba, are systematically being renovated and modernized. Aba has
had a face-lift under Ochendo after many years of infrastructural abandonment
and decay. Umuahia now wears the real look of a state capital, unlike what it
was before. Ochendoism is synonymous with youth empowerment and gender
sensitivity. Before the emergence of Chief T. A. Orji as the Abia helmsman,
Abia Youths who were considered very lucky and well connected could only get
wheel-barrows. The youths then were made to accept povery and defeatism as an
acceptable way of life. But under Ochendoism, Abia Youths have comfortably been
made to experience the other side of life. The government of ochendo has
exposed them to various forms of skill acquisitoin, ranging from craftmanship
to computer technicalities. Apart from skill acquisition, the administration,
which outlawed the use of commercial motor-cycles in the urban cities of
Umuahia and Aba in order to address crime, has consistently empowered the Abia
Youths with donation of hundreds of tricycletes, cars and buses. About five
thousand Abia Youths are being paid fifteen thousand naira each per month.
These and many other incentives are pragmatic disposition of Ochendoism in
addressing youth unemployment and its attedant restiveness.
In
the philosophical outlay of Ochendoism is the very strong belief that the
health of the citizenry of any given polity determines its success in the
pursuit of her set goals. Contingent upon this, the Ochendo administration has,
unabatedly, placed premium on the health of Abia people. His government
initiated and built the Abia Specialist and Diagnostic Hospital at Umuahia.
This hospital is an innovation on its own as there is no ailment that can not
be successfully diagnosed in it. It is a very result-oriented partnership
between the state government and MECURE OF India. The Abia State University Teaching
Hospital at Aba has been enjoying commensurate funding by the state government
and recently constructed an elevator to ease the pains of her patients who may
be unable to climb the steps. The story there is a comprehensive success.
The
hospital at Amachara, which before the emergence of Governor T. A. Orji, was
incapable of competing with any well equipped, staffed and managed Health
centre, has today been transformed into a Specialist hospital, having the right
calibre of medical personnel, equipment and funding. Abandoned General
hospitals at Okeikpe, Okpuala-Ngwa, Arochukwu andmany other places have been
vigorously renovated and refurbished to make them capable of addressing the
health needs of the people. Ochendo’s grass-roots health policy is that every
community in the state should have a functional health cenre. Towards the
realization of this objective, the government has built about two hundred and
fifty health centres, equitably distributed in the three senatorial zones of
the state.
In
the area of administration, the philosophy of Ochendoism has injected stability
and confidence in the system. Prior to the election of Chief T. A. Orji, the
State Executive Council could not exceed six months in a stretch and no
commissioner was appointed without being taken to a juju shrine to swear to an
oath of unconstitutional allegiance to the family of the then governor. It did
not stop at that. The intending commissioner was equally required to cough out
some reasonable amount of money before being so apppointed. By June 2013, the Commissioners
serving in the administration of Governor T. A. Orji would have served two
years, having come on board in July 2011. None paid a dime. None was taken to
any shrine. There is no gainsaying the fact that the founding fathers of Abia
State laid its foundation in their uncompromised faith in God, hence Abia is
known as God’s Own State.
Before
the advent of Ochendo as Governor, Abia had been forced into a goon’s own
state. During that time, the Ogwugwu shrine in Okija in Anambra State had
become the official holy temple of the state government. But Ochendoism implies
that the people of God’s Own State should worship the God that created Heaven
and Earth. The relationship between the government of Ochendo and religious leaders
in the state has been unprecedentedly cordial. Ochendo believes so much in the
efficacy of Christianity and the Church that he is the only Governor, since the
end of the Nigerian-Biafran war, fourty-three years ago, that has successfully
handed schools back to their former missionary owners, in the state. He has
also handed over hospitals to their former missionary owners. It is also beyond
any doubt that he has sponsored the highest number of Christian pilgrims to
Israel between 1997 and 2013. Being a quintessential advocate of the Nigerian
State and unity, Ochendo has been very generous in the sponsorship of Muslims
in the state to Mecca. Many non-indigenes hold political appointments in the
state, including execution of big contracts.
Ochendoism
appreciates the importance of tourism. Hence the administration of the state
does not only encourage investors in this sector but has taken a very bold step
by initiating and constructing an international conference centre that will
make Abia State a destination point for intellectuals, professionals,
administrators, diplomats and business executives.
Summarily
put, Ochendoism is the tenacious application of vision, transparency, justice,
equity, altruism, intellect, humanity, partnership with the federal government
and above all, the fear of God in managing the affairs of a people by its
leadership.
Chief (Sir) Don
Ubani; KSC, JP
(Okwubunka
of Asa)
Umuiku-Isi-Asa
Ukwa-West
L.G.A.
P.M.B.
7048, Aba
E-mail:
ubanidon@yahoo.com
08035523360
12-04-2013.
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