There are more Igbos in PDP than APGA – Orji

Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State has punctured the claims by members of the All Progressive Grand Alliance canvassing votes in the state with the slogan  that ‘APGA is the only Igbo party’, dismissing the claims as a propaganda meant to deceive the gullible.

Orji, who was speaking on Thursday at a meeting with professional associations in Umuahia, said there was no iota of truth in the claims that APGA was an Igbo party, contending that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party has more Igbo members than APGA.

He said, “APGA is not Igbo party because if it is, it will be controlling all five Igbo states. It  was by accident that APGA won in Anambra State and the point man, Peter Obi, has since left APGA for PDP because he knows there is no way there.

“All those in APGA are people who left PDP; and don’t allow them to deceive you by claiming that APGA is Igbo party. PDP is a national party, which has better agenda for Ndigbo than APGA.
“APGA only adopted President Goodluck Jonathan because it has no alternative. If it thinks it has a better material, let it field its own candidate and it will fail.

“Stop listening to them when they come around to tell you to vote for Jonathan for the Presidency and APGA candidates for other elections. Their claims that Jonathan has asked them to go to APGA and contest is false because Jonathan cannot work against his party. They are not better connected to Jonathan than we are.”

Orji told the forum, attended by representatives of over 20 professional bodies in the state, that his administration had posted remarkable achievements despite declining federal allocations.
He said his performance would better be appreciated in view of the fact that he had not gone to raise funds in the capital market unlike many of his counterparts “believed to have performed wonders.”
The governor explained that his refusal to borrow money from the capital market was based on his resolve not to mortgage his successor or encumber him with debt servicing.

Orji said he would not want his successor to share his ugly  experience as he inherited huge debt from his predecessor, a development he lamented, stagnated the state’s economy.
He added that his administration had made a mark in intangible democratic gains such as peace and security, apart from identifiable physical development he said had been recorded .

Orji expressed joy that apart from emancipating the state from political bondage, his administration had also extricated the state from idolatry imposed on it by his predecessor .
“We incurred the wrath of God by the worship of effigies and demi-gods introduced by the past administration but with your support, I fought and set the state free from all such anomalies,” the governor said.

Gov Orji: I Won’t Pass Debt Burden to My Successor

Abia State Governor, Chief Theodore Orji, on Tuesday explained why he had continued to resist the temptation of going to the bond market to raise funds despite the financial challenges facing the state. He said he cannot afford to create a situation where his successor would inherit debt burden.

Orji bared his mind at a meeting with teachers following complaints over the irregularity in the payment of their salaries, saying he could have taken bonds and pay salaries and when his successor takes over he would be serving the bond instead of paying salaries.

“I don’t want my successor to suffer what I suffered,” he said, adding that he was saddled with huge debt burden when he took office hence he had decided to break the cycle.

The governor told the teachers that the fall in the revenue of the state, especially the ones accuring from federal allocation was impacting negatively on the ability of government to meet up with its financial obligations to the teachers regularly.
“We are incapacitated financially and finance is the engine room of governance,” he said.

According to him, there was need to explain the real situation of things to the teachers and appeal to their conscience and make them understand that everything does not end in demonstration of protest.”

He said the arrears of salaries were already being cleared, adding, “We will continue paying you all the debts we owe you. We will pay.”

Orji assured the teachers that he held them in high esteem that was why the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state chose a teacher, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, who also came from a family of teachers as the party’s governorship candidate. He urged Abia teachers to support him.

Earlier in his remarks, Ikpeazu assured the teachers that he would take care of their welfare and asked them to back his governorship ambition as the future would be made bright for them.

He said while he would strive to pay their salaries and allowances as at when due, the teachers should brace up to reciprocate by increasing their productivity and increase the quality of students and pupils that come out from Abia schools.
Meanwhile, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the state, Dr Alex Otti, has promised to abolish multiple taxation in the state, if elected.

Otti, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) made the promise at Ubakala in Umuahia while addressing his party supporters during his campaign tour of Bende and Umuahia South Local Government Areas of the state.
He expressed concern that the residents of the state, especially the traders, market men and women, artisans, transporters, industrialists and other business concerns, were being over-taxed.

He said many businesses, particularly in Aba and Umuahia, were adversely affected by the development and that many of them had relocated to other states.
The APGA governorship hopeful decried the non-payment of teachers’ salaries, as well as pensions and gratuities by the government.

“I use this opportunity to call on the outgoing administration to pay the arrears of pensions and teachers’ salaries. “But if they failed to pay, by May 29, when we take over government, I will pay the salary and pension arrears.’’

Otti promised to deploy his international connection and exposure in attracting investment to the state, so that jobs would be created for the teeming unemployed youths

He promised to transform Umuahia, Aba and Ohafia, saying that he would redesign and rebuild Aba.

He also promised to build a “state-of-the-art’’ specialist hospital in each of the three cities to enhance efficient healthcare delivery and check medical tourism outside the state.

He promised that the condition of service and salary of medical doctors would be attractive to lure back home Abia-born medical doctors plying their trade outside Nigeria.

The former Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Bank, who attributed his success in life to the quality of education he had, promised to introduce free and compulsory education in the state, if elected.

He promised not to receive any salary for the period of his tenure, if elected governor, as he would forfeit it to the development of the state.

“I believe that why God blessed you is for you to be a blessing to others,” he said.

SOUTH EAST PDP disowns Orji Kalu

The South-East zone of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has refuted rumours about former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, returning to the party.

The party’s National Vice Chairman, South East zone, Col. Austin Akobundu (rtd), who confirmed this said that the rumours were figments of the peddlers’ imagination.

Speaking in Enugu, Akobundu said, “He is neither registered in his Igbere ward nor recognized as having done so in Bende local government area, let alone being accepted at the state level of the party as a returnee.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Orji Uzor Kalu is not member of PDP. The fact that he visited some friends at the national secretariat of party in Abuja and later took photograph with some unsuspecting national officers and former political office holders as published in two national dailies does not make him a member of the PDP. The party has constitution, guidelines and laid down rules by which it conducts its affairs including how returnees should be reunited.

“Kalu, we should recall, was a governor at a time when our dear National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Ma’azu, was holding sway in Bauchi State. That Kalu had gone to our national headquarters to felicitate with his erstwhile colleague probably in company of others does not automatically qualify him as a member of the PDP.”
It will be recalled that the former governor left the PDP in 2011, after he lost the Abia North Senate race.

Conflict and underdevelopment by Simon Kolawole

Simon Kolawole Live!: By Simon Kolawole, Email: simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com

I had not been to Abia State in ages. My visit to Umuahia sometime last year set me thinking yet again about the Nigerian condition. That was when today's topic nestled in my mind: the role of conflict in development. It is not just leadership and corruption that impede development: conflict is a strong repellent. Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, as the governor of the state from 1999 to 2007, was most of the time at loggerheads with President Olusegun Obasanjo. The battleground was the media. Orji Kalu's airline, Slok, was eventually grounded. Abia suffered as the state was denied plenty federal juice as a result of the conflict.

Kalu eventually defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to form a new party, Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), as Obasanjo squeezed him out. Then in 2007, Kalu anointed his Chief of Staff, Chief Theodore Orji,  as his successor. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), clearly playing Obasanjo's script, arrested and detained Orji before the election just to get back at Kalu. Some of us in the media were hearing the voice of Jacob and feeling the hand of Esau. We criticised EFCC. Nevertheless, Orji remained in detention. But he still won. EFCC had to release him to be sworn in. We were ushered into President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's era of "rule of law".

Sooner than later, Orji and his "godfather", Kalu, were at daggers drawn. A state in desperate need of peace and development went into a standstill. In 2010, this cold war became an open conflict and hot words were exchanged in the newspapers. It appeared Abia was programmed for conflict. That had been its lot since 1999. But while Orji and Kalu fell out, the relationship between Orji and the elders of the state (who were also not on good terms with Kalu) improved tremendously. Orji's performance in the last four years, in my opinion, is certainly way beyond what he recorded between 2007 and 2010. Significantly, unlike Kalu, Orji is in the good books of Abuja. This means a lot in the Nigerian equation.

Last year, on a visit to Dr. Eze Chikamnayo, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy (who jocularly calls me "my leader"), my first shock on entering Umuahia was that the market was gone. It had been a nuisance in the centre of town. The traders now have something like a whole city to themselves, with heavily subsidised buses taking shoppers back and forth. For the first time, I saw dualised roads in Umuahia. I saw new government structures under construction ─ a multi-storey secretariat, a judiciary complex and a conference centre. I visited the Specialist Hospital and Diagnostic Centre. I visited remodelled and rehabilitated schools. I saw new housing estates. Umuahia is beginning to look like a capital city. These projects, Chikamnayo said, are replicated all over the state. Obviously, when conflict is minimised, there is a good chance for development.

Thus, in the hierarchy of development repellents, conflict has to take its pride of place. But we often understate it. Conflict comes in two species: violent and non-violent. The Boko Haram violent conflict has dragged Nigeria, particularly the North, backward but we do not seem to understand this simple fact. Apart from the death and destruction, the climate of fear has scared away investors from several parts of the North. Infrastructural development has been hampered by insecurity, which has also gulped resources. What we spend on security and compensation for victims could have been spent productively. And this is to say nothing about the grand paralysis of economic activities and the ruin of poor people's livelihoods.

While our politicians are still busy playing 2015 politics with Boko Haram, the conflict is killing us softly. We do not seem to worry with our enormous security spending in the last five years. Do the math. It could have done the whole country some good if spent elsewhere. A threat to any part of Nigeria is a threat to all, but narrow-mindedness means most of us cannot see beyond our nose. Some Northerners were busy saying President Goodluck Jonathan was behind the bombings, while their friends from the South said it was those who lost the 2011 elections. While we were busy whipping up sentiments, the militants were getting stronger and meaner. If we were wise enough, our energy would have been spent on how to quench the fire, no matter who started it.

Away from violent conflict, we have two forms of non-violent conflict, and both are repellents of development. One is legal and the other political. Because of the way and manner we conduct elections in Nigeria, there is every tendency for legal conflict. The declared loser will go to court to seek justice. You cannot beat a child and order the child not to cry. But, then, this has a cost to development. The declared winner not only faces enormous distraction with the uncertainty beclouding his legitimacy, he is also going to take liberty with state resources to defend himself in court. Fictitious contracts are often awarded to create slush funds to pay lawyers and bribe judges. Many times, these cases go all the way to the Supreme Court. What a cost to economic resources, including precious time. Only a few governors get things done while their election is a subject of litigation.

The second manifestation of non-violent conflict is political. One example is the infighting in Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), which has cost Nigeria billions of naira. I hesitate to say billions of dollars. Many projects have been stalled as a result of this as the gladiators flex muscles. I wish I could compute the amount of money that has gone into chartered flights as the governors fly around the country day and night to plot strategies. The kind of money that has gone into bankrolling media wars could have been spent sinking boreholes and filling potholes. The failure of the 36 governors to sit under one roof to continue with their peer review-driven development initiatives on polio, agriculture, education and water has injured the progress of Nigeria in many aspects.

Another manifestation of non-violent political conflict, which we discussed today using the Abia example, is the one between godfathers and their godsons. It is very commonplace in Nigeria. When someone helps you to gain political power, there are implications that, if not well managed, could be dire. To avoid running into conflict with your godfather, you have to kowtow to him. And if you do, you could be in trouble. You run the risk of being in government without being in power. And if you don't kowtow, you could also be in trouble. You risk instability in your government. This is a major development repellent in Nigeria. Conflict, either violent or non-violent, is not in the interest of our progress. When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

As we continue these regular conversations on the stumbling blocks to our development, we need to promote conflict into the discourse. Poor leadership is no doubt the major hindrance, and corruption is inevitably an icon of poor leadership. And conflict? Don't underrate that repellent. It can kill. The political actors must learn to manage conflict in a way that it will not hurt development. They can pick their battles.