By Oguwike Nwachuku
More than six years ago, Governor Rochas Anayo Okorocha benefitted from the misfortune of his predecessor, Ikedi Ohakim, who was framed as a tormentor of the church, nay men of God. Consequently, Ohakim was deemed unfit to return to Imo State Government house for a second term.
Like the President Muhammadu Buhari and predecessor, President Goodluck Jonathan scenario when the All Progressive Congress (APC) defeated the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and took over power, Okorocha rode to Imo State Government House amid pomp and circumstance, with the common people of his state who felt short-changed by the Ohakim government chanting victory songs and thanking God for the dawn of a new era.
They thought Okorocha was one of them.
Okorocha did not achieve the feat of gaining the support of the common people of Imo State alone then. He did with the active connivance of the leadership of the Owerri Catholic Church led by Archbishop Anthony Obinna who saw in Ohakim an infidel among the Christian faithful deserving excommunication and was accordingly excommunicated from the Imo State Government House to accommodate Okorocha.
Six years down the road, the scale seems to have fallen off the eyes of all the dramatis personae who plotted the coming of Okorocha, with the once happy electorate today feeling defrauded and wishing that the day they voted for him never came. In the alternative, they are begging for Okorocha’s tenure to run out fast so that they can regain their dignity because they felt being raped by a man they trusted so much.
Recent events in Imo State have thrown up issues that test the leadership qualities of Okorocha who superintends over the state with a population of nearly four million.
The latest, of course, is the semblance of mummification of the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, the man many are wont to argue, is the least of African leaders deserving of honours now, and much more, by the government of any state in Nigeria, given what Nigerians living in South Africa have been made to go through of late.
Valarie Willis in his article, “What is the key to successful leadership?,” in the book – Leadership Challenge: Achieve the Extraordinary- submitted that “leaders who are great at listening to diverse opinions and can facilitate teams in moving toward solutions – without ‘telling’ team members what to do – are leaders of influence that can create positive working environments, remove organizational obstacles, and provide tools employees need to perform their jobs effectively.”
“Influential leaders create environments that are: trusting, collaborative, open and sharing,” Willis added.
Of late, pieces on Okorocha’s unbecoming demeanour as Imo State governor and the lessons from what the authors wrote boils down to his leadership qualities. While some see Okorocha as a jester in government house, others perceive him as acting scripts only meant for people with high level of mental disorder. One of the authors, Azu Ishiekwene, former Managing Director of Punch Newspapers actually sees Okorocha’s government in a recent article as that of a one chance bus, whatever that connotes.
But let me credit Okorocha for his sense of humour that can be infectious most of the time. However, more often than not his humour hardly adds value to the people, rather it takes Imo State on fool’s ride that one begins to wonder where the governor acquired his brand of leadership qualities – Harvard; Oxford, University of Nigeria, Nsukka; University of Lagos; Ahmadu Bello University or Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife?
You are almost tempted to believe that Okorocha’s many years of hawking second hand clothes (okirika) and other articles of trade on the streets of Jos, Plateau State where he said he eventually studied Law must be having a great hold on him.
The many sins of Okorocha must not be viewed only from the recent development of honouring a discredited African leader, Zuma by erecting his statue on the hallowed land of Imo but from the character of the governor who sees himself as the lord of the manor surrounded by a harem of captured subjects.
Yours sincerely was one of those who had great expectations in the coming of Okorocha as governor in 2011 using the vehicle of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), a party many had so much sympathy for and still do, because of their strong conviction that Ndigbo needed a platform like APGA as a rallying point to stay relevant and negotiate well in the Project Nigeria.
So many people had thought that the coming of Okorocha was going to propel APGA to make an inroad in other parts of the South East, as Anambra State by 2011 was already doing very well as an APGA-controlled state. How wrong were they as events turned out in few years’ time.
The “revolution” that saw the exit of Ohakim was made to look people-oriented. Then, Imo under Ohakim’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was not as competitive as Anambra in terms of availability and provision of infrastructure. Instead of provision of infrastructure, what reigned supreme everywhere in Imo under Ohakim was more of deceit and propaganda. The alleged assault on the priest as reason to oust Ohakim did not just serve as an electioneering tool but became an icing on the cake which Okorocha reaped from.
Unfortunately, it did not take long before Okorocha started manifesting his idiosyncrasies, nay the stuff he is made of. Today, Okorocha is known as that governor who takes no advice from anyone except from himself and cronies. Because he consults no one, defers to no one, he sees himself as an all-knowing political demagogue, a godly statue that ought to be worshipped or venerated by Imo people regardless of their class.
Not long after assuming office as APGA governor, Okorocha found in the formation of the so-called Igbo socio-political bloc otherwise called Committee 21 (C21), an instrument to sing APGA’s nunc dimittis. Reason is that the gang that constituted the C21 members was instrumental to the eventually sell out of the party in what today is known as an alliance with other parties to form the All Progressive Congress (APC).
At the inauguration of C21 in 2012, the members said they were poised to make a big difference in the political direction of the South East come 2015 and even beyond. Many had thought they wanted to reposition APGA for the 2015 poll.
C21 leadership included Okorocha (Director of Mobilisation), Senator Annie Okonkwo (Chairman), Victor Umeh (Director of Publicity), Osita Izunaso (National Secretary), Ziggy Azike (Director of Legal Services), among others like Martins Agbaso. They were all members of the APGA.
Okorocha, Okonkwo and Izunaso connived to ditch APGA for the newly-registered APC, allying with former governor of Anambra State, Chris Ngige who, at the inauguration of the C21, was not only a director, but also a member of the now rested Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), one of the parties that became APC.
There were also other prominent members of C21 such as Ifeanyi Ubah, Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate for Anambra, 2013 poll; Captain Emmanuel Iheanacho, former Minister of Transportation; and a PDP chieftain then. When they read the hand writing on the wall they all pulled out to pursue their individual political interests.
Only Umeh, Agbaso and Azike refused to trade with the APGA or simply put, to work at cross-purposes with the party’s interest despite the mounting pressure from Okorocha and his ilk. Is it therefore a surprise that former PDP spokesman, Olisa Metuh, did classify most of those behind C21 as an “assemblage of traders.”
Soon, Okorocha started to loath the APGA that brought him into political office after many years of rejection by other parties. He started taunting APGA that injected political revivalism in him, as not a political party any longer but a movement.
Okorocha not only went after and against his APGA political mentors, before long, he entered into an unholy alliance with like-minded characters who wanted the party dead long before he joined.
He fell out with the likes of Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra State and the only APGA governor in the country then. He severed his relationship with Umeh, former National Chairman of APGA, who risked his life to have him elected into office as returning officer, among other APGA chieftains he treated with disdain. Okorocha suddenly forgot his many years of sojourning in political wilderness seeking for an opportunity to serve at the highest level, either at the state or federal government.
The tragedy of Okorocha’s coming to Imo is not only felt within the executive arm of government that he oversees, but everywhere – the state legislature, the judiciary, the civil servants, among retirees, Okada drivers, market men and women, local governments and town unions, traditional rulers, teachers and their students, and what have you.
It is even ironical that Okorocha has more cheer leaders from these same institutions he has undermined so much, making it practically impossible for him to distil the real feeling of the people about him.
Imo State has a legislature that is practically lame. The Speaker has never shown any sign of pragmatism as one whose tier of government is autonomous. The preoccupation of the members is preserving in no un-mistaken terms, the godly or demagoguery disposition and authoritarian status of the governor as far as budgetary allocations and implementation are concerned. Same applies to the Permanent Secretaries and their Directors in ministries and agencies of government, senior judicial officers, traditional rulers, among others.
Most of Okorocha’s cabinet members, advisers and assistants are better described as muffler wearing zombies and politically exposed snakes crawling everywhere seeking sweet tales to narrate to their boss to curry his favour, which basically is for their personal aggrandizement and not service to the people.
Because most of them do not know Okorocha so well, they see their serving in his cabinet an opportunity to sing his praises which we know is for the wrong reason. What is worse is that those who know Okorocha in and out like his deputy, Eze Madumere who has been with the governor for the major part of his life, have been so distanced from the governor that Okorocha is torn between getting genuine pieces of advice from such persons and fake ones, from political jobbers and enemies within.
Day after day, the political jobbers around Okorocha conceive a date, even if imaginary, when Madumere will be impeached. That is how bad some of Okorocha’s advisers and cabinet members have become because of their selfish desires. And did not Proverbs 29:12 say: “If a ruler pays attention to lies all his servants become wicked?”
Around Okorocha today are family members, in laws, dangerous advisers and cabinet members who in their intuition have crowned one of them governor ahead of 2019. This class of persons have long held Okorocha hostage, cheering him everywhere he goes and goading him over whatever idea, noble or not, that the governor is deceived into embarking on without weighing the implication.
Pronto, Okorocha has been held hostage but he seems not to know. Yes, he has been held hostage by his immediate family members and in-laws, in what people derogatorily tag familicracy, his cabinet members, his advisers and assistants, and in the midst of this, has lost touch with the reality as far as governance is concerned in Imo State.
If Okorocha is the reading type he would have been guided by one of George Washington’s great words: “Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let these few be well tried before you give them your confidence,” and that “mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.”
Okorocha should by now have known that Imo people elected him to fix and commission roads, hospitals, schools, boreholes, electricity transformers, modern markets and other basic infrastructure and not to erect the statues of fellows like Zuma.
The governor knows the huge implication to the state, of using its scarce resources to ferry leaders within Nigeria and outside whose presence will add no value to their means of livelihood.
Barely a year and half to the end of his administration, can Okorocha be proud to say that whoever he raises his hands as successor to his office will win the governorship election in Imo? How much efforts has Okorocha made to unite his fractured APC in Imo State ahead of 2019? Shouldn’t these and more worthy ventures bother the governor than the pursuit of inanities that his political opponents will use for electioneering?
Having ascended office with the mantra of coming to serve the poor people of Imo State, let Okorocha be reminded again of Proverbs 29:14 that, “The king who judges the poor with truth his throne will be established forever.” How confident is Okorocha who used to shout “My People, My People” few years ago that after 2019 his throne will be established talk-less of being established forever?
In case the governor has forgotten, in 2014 he went to Turkey in what was a business pilgrimage with about 150 indigenes of the state where they stayed for four days. The idea, we were told, was in keeping to his “job, job, job,” mantra in the second half of his tenure. After that trip, Okorocha’s cabinet members and other lackeys took the in-famous Rochanomics to a ridiculous level. Mr. Governor, where are the jobs?
Posterity will never remember Okorocha for erecting statues that are unpopular in the state because they stand the risk of being pulled down, but history will be kind to him if schools, hospitals, roads, markets, boreholes, electricity polls and transformers, and much more which his regime erected and are functional, are sighted.
Today, unfortunately, what Ndi Imo seem to have seen dotting the devastated landscape called their state are different statues, veiled and unveiled. It is in the interest of Okorocha to gba brake and do a re-think or have himself to blame forever. It is not complimentary hearing that Okorocha has led Imo to perdition. If we are to be guided by what Socrates said, “The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing,” and the time to do the appraisal is now.