FEATURE ARTICLE

Godson Offoaro
offoaro@africaaidswatch.org
Mitchellville, MD, USA

Political 419 in Imo State

or the records, Old Imo state comprised all of the present Abia, and majority parts of the present Ebonyi States and the whole of the present Imo State. The old Imo was created in 1976 from the old East Central state. Since its creation, its fortunes have not been different from those of other states of comparable needs in Nigeria particularly, parts of the eastern states that are now generally referred to as the southeastern states.

During the second Republic, Imo State stood out as a beacon of the selfless industry doggedness and sheer willingness to succeed in the face of odds - all which are attributes with which the average Igbo man is known. In the Nigerian context, it meant even more. Its citizens suffered undue deprivation because the area had suffered two concurrent forms of marginalization - one from the federal government and the other by a systematic oversight by previous administrators of the area. What this means was that Imo had no industries, it had not modern infrastructure, no federal presence nor did it have any viable revenue generating institution of worth.

This writer was a university student during Nigeria's second republic. What conspicuously stood Imo indigenes out from the rest of the student populace was our poverty of material well-being. Our only solace was that we were scholarly and brilliant. While students from the north enjoyed free education augmented by obvious wealthy parental intervention and a patronage sustained by the zone as the producers of majority Nigerian ruling class, students from the then LOOBO states - Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Bendel and Ondo states enjoyed bursary awards that made the pursuit of the academe a thing of joy. With Chief Awolowo on the driver's seat, students from the Unity Party-ruled states were the envy of all. Students from Imo and old Anambra states earned none of this till much, more lately.

But people from Imo state and its student-populace understood. Why because our leadership under the auspices of Chief Samuel Onunaka Mbakwe made us aware that we were a thoroughly disadvantaged and deprived people. He explained that our unenviable precarious situation stemmed from the fact that he was doing a lot while at the same time investing in industry and modern infrastructure to build a modern Imo state in order to make the lives of future Imo indigenes better than it was then.

He explained that he was building a university to accommodate majority of Imo qualified indigenes who were not admitted into federal universities because of quota system - a system that had effectively deprived Imo state University bound students from being admitted proportionally into federal varsities, Imo being the greatest producer of potential university materials in the whole nation. We understood when he lamented that there were not industries in the state and that he was busy building industries to make Imo State the Taiwan of the nation; that we should take solace that after our graduation, we will have factories to employ us. He said he was building the Amaraku Power Generating Plant and that of Izombe, to provide electricity, since the federal government had effectively marginalized us, Imo people. He pledged that he would build the aluminum extrusion plant in Inyishi and the Avutu poultry farm. He begged us to bear with him because he had put a lot of money in rehabilitating the roads of Aba Township to provide Igbo traders a fortress from where to attack the burgeoning global mercantilism. Above all he promised he would build us a modern color television station with Outside Broadcast (OB) Vans and satellite stations to assuage our appetite for news, information and entertainment which the highly regulated and partisan NTA Aba, Nigeria could not provide. He told us to be studious as he was also busy building a new Owerri capital, which he then likened to "our own Abuja." For a start, he was busy building a five star hotel to be name "Imo Concorde," where we (every Imo citizen who can afford) would all meet during evening hours after a hard days job. In the end he approved for us a 300 Naira bursary for every Imo university student and a 200 Naira award for those in colleges of Technology. He assured us that before long most of us studying in other states would be flying into Owerri after he had completed the Imo Airport. By the time the Shagari regime was overthrown in 1983, Mbakwe had wrought near Economic Miracle in Imo state. He had accomplished in four years what he had set out to achieve in eight Years!

Enter the Military:

The all conquering, lo, rapacious military administration that ruled Imo state from 1983-1999 collectively seamed to have one mission in mind - to dismantle all the well programmed and well articulated people-oriented achievements of the civilian administration of Samuel Onunaka Mbakwe. Today, the Amaraku and Izombe power stations are no more. They were dismantled and sold into exile by a military administrator that happens to be Igbo. All the industries set up by Mbakwe were inexplicably allowed to rot, die and decay. As a matter of fact none of them survived the military era. Coupled with this, was the neglect with which the administrators of the Petroleum Trust Fund handled the state. While federal money were being pumped into the education and rehabilitation of infrastructure in many states of the federation especially in the north, Imo and almost all Igbo states trudged along as if they were not part of Nigeria. Our eminent sons and daughters who until recently were on the fore front in articulation of Imo policy had either been created out from Imo or have acquiesced because of the pursuit of material things. Sam Mbakwe now impoverished, had cried himself hoarse, no body ever hears of Dr. Nnanna Ukaegbu of Imerinwe. Chief Francis Arthur Nzeribe is not a man you can make a sustainable plan with. He could turn against you in a heartbeat and Chief Iwuanynwu, my former boss is enmeshed in the pursuit of prurient capitalism that you do not and can never understand where his political interests are - the Igbo or his pocket. Was it a big relief once more then when at the dawn of the new dispensation in 1999, all had hoped that Imo prosperity will as it does during any civilian regime will turn the corner? A hoped anchored on the belief that whenever Imo people collectively chose who ruled them they had always been right knowing that only our own will appreciate what ails the people.

It is against this background we take a peep into the Achike Udenwa administration of Imo State. I have visited Imo state more than six times within the last 12 months. I am therefore talking from a standpoint of facts as I see them on the ground in Imo state. And generally speaking, if you compared Imo state 3 years under Udenwa and three years under Mbakwe, you would think that Mbakwe is Igbo while Udenwa is a foreigner from another tribe/planet imposed on Imo state ostensibly to keep Imo from making any progress. You would think Achike Udenwa is an extension of the military era in Imo State. Sadly Udenwa is getting ready, very much ready for a second term! Sad in the sense that Nigerian politics being what it is, his re-election is almost guaranteed.

But given that Imo State is now a third of what it used to be and given that it now receives more money than the old Imo state received every month from Federal allocation, one is very, very compelled to ask:

What went wrong?

What went wrong is Governor Achike Udenwa. In December 2001, I had sat down with one prominent member of his administration on a visit to Washington DC, who demurringly asserted that what ails Udenwa was under-publicity. He opined that the man was a smooth and quiet achiever. He reeled out a number of achievements, which he attributed to the governor before taking his time to tell me that the man's humility and prudence in the management of scare resources is un-matched. For example, he said, "Achike does not fly first class. He cannot rationalize how he could when millions of Imo citizens are living a life of near penury." In spite of the spirited efforts by members of his political top echelon to paint Achike Udenwa good, I took time off during my numerous visits to the state to see things for myself.

Yes, Imo still has no federal presence other the Federal University of Science and Technology (FUTO) and the regional headquarters of Federal parastatals such as NEPA, NITEL and the medical centers. Yes, Imo population is still vibrant, education hungry and jobless and yes, Imo's needs are disproportionately greater than those states with equal needs. But that was the situation when Mbakwe mounted the political saddle twenty-something years ago. And that was the situation when civilian governors of surrounding eastern states such as Abia, and Ebonyi went to work and are producing wonders for their people. And truly speaking governance is the ability of the governor to utilize scarce resource for the benefit of the needy majority - in this case the deprived people of Imo.

In Imo state today, civil servants are owed months of salary arrears; teachers are owed over six months of salary and entitlements while government infrastructure is suffering woefully - in very bad and dilapidated shape. Imo state University and the entire education infrastructure is in near collapse. Products of the university like those from many Nigerian universities are almost illiterate. Secondary school leavers and university graduates are roaming the ill maintained and security thirsty roads of Imo state. State roads, except the Ideato-Urualla road, which leads to the governor's village, are in shambles. Contracts awarded for the repair of the so-called federal roads are in the hands of Achike Udenwa's cronies who have pocketed their mobilizations fees and are not performing. The result is the roads are either not repaired or repaired haphazardly that they return to their previous state of disrepair soon after. Not any new projects have been embarked upon by the Achike Udenwa regime. No new industries are being built and non- is on the drawing board. Those built by Mbakwe which are still standing after many years of military rape and abuse are even worse under Udenwa. Owerri, the state capital, which used to be a show case, is in ruins as un-cleared refuse generated from the Eke Onunwa Market spill into Douglas Road from the right and unto Wetheral Road from the left. The offensive stench, which this generates, has become a source for daily supply of epidemic. If Nigeria were a modern democracy where records are kept, all will be shocked at the number of people who may have been prematurely sent to their untimely deaths occasioned from air-borne epidemic whose source could easily be traced to Owerri, Nigeria. Stroke and sudden dearth which hitherto were not natives of Igbo land has taken over as the number one killer disease in Imo State, Nigeria. And this is a new, smaller but richer Imo than the one Mbakwe ruled! And this is a state, which the governor has more than once declared bankrupt. And this a state where some one in the government house is arrested for stealing 30 million Naira raw currency which some body kept at the government house in Owerri. And this is a state where the legislature hikes the governor's security votes in order to appropriate the extra and the governor signs. So that peace will reign among the collaborators in this mindless government thievery of a peoples' wealth. And yet this is a state where every member of the house of assembly has more than two official cars and a retinue of officials to wit. All these spoils allocated and approved by the executive. And this is a state that prides itself as the most peaceful state. Why can't there be peace if the legislature and the executive are daily conniving to reap the people dry.

The woe of Imo state today is that the state is governed, from the legislature to the executive, by mediocrity, cheating and conniving visionless visionaries and accidental politicians whose perpetual interests are centered around one objective and one objective only - how to amass wealth from the public till and using same to rig the next election. Rig, yes, because that has become the universal language of politicians in the state. There is no form of checks on the thieving rulers of present Imo state. Any dissenting voice is either drowned out of existence or is sent a visitation by men of the underworld led by the government sponsored Bakassi Boys.

Fashion a state that boasts a galaxy of academics, professionals, intellectuals who have been shunted aside by contractors and a herd of 419ners who were displaced by the Owerri riots of the years immediately preceding the advent of 1999 - that is your Imo State. That its chief executive officer failed to notice (or compromised if you will) the preponderance of these quarks/sharks and use his famed and prodigious/famed negotiating skills to stunt their disrupting influence is a mark of failure and may be at the roots of the Imo inertia. It's been three years and more since Udenwa came to power. It is sorry to say this is the most unproductive regime ever witnessed by Imo - civil or military. I have heard of how much compassion the able governor has for man kind and by extension the people of Imo state. I have heard of how he goes by the name "Onwa" - which when translated means "light in the midst of darkness." But Achike Udenwa by his record, I must say, is neither compassionate nor the shinning moon in the midst of darkness, which he professes to be.