Time Bomb Called Ikuku (part 2)
By Don Norman Obinna – Agu Ibeku
In his inaugural anatomy class with first-year students, a medical professor came into the laboratory with a cadaver for practice.
As he laid the corpse on the surgical table, he told the excited jambites that the components of human bodies must not repulse a prospective doctor.
He illustrated his narration by inserting his finger inside the corpse’s anus, dipping it in his mouth and licking it up.
His exemplary leadership blew the ignorant students’ minds and brought them to their feet in acclamation as they swiftly complied.
Unbeknownst to the students, the professor had implanted his index inside the corpse’s anus but slurped his middle finger.
Oblivious to his ruse, they applauded despicability perpetrated in the guise of exemplary leadership.
This chronicle is a classic example of fraudulent leadership.
It depicts the Abia State scenario, especially the Ikwuano/Umuahia axis, where the hoity-toity Chinedum Orji receives accolades for play-acting feeding his starving brothers when in fact, he is rubbing palm oil on their lips.
Rt. Hon. CHINEDUM Orji (IKUKU Oma Abia)
That is leadership by deception, described by DaShanne Stokes as fraud. The list of his mediocre achievements (through his Direct Touch Initiative) exaggerated with highfalutin words have the following:
• Provision of electricity transformers
• Boreholes
• Renovation of schools and
• Health facilities
His Chief Press Secretary further styled him the Ikuku Oma Abia for empowering the less-privileged with grinding machines, power-generating sets, barbing clippers, sewing machines, cars, tricycles, wrappers, cash gifts and scholarships.
Except for Ikuku and his praise singers, it is impossible to fathom how the gift of power-generating sets, wrappers and barbing clippers can lift someone from obscurity.
Publicising these tear-inducing and ludicrous empowerment items in a national newspaper is insensitivity taken to a crescendo.
It is felonious to empower young people with grinding machines, sewing machines, cars and tricycles in a contemporary society that places a premium on education. It is a sign of alienation.
The past government, he was a de facto Governor, claimed it built 255 invincible health centres in the three senatorial districts and brought a diagnostic centre, the machines and the doctors for kidney transplants.
They repulsively claimed that ailing Abians do not need to travel abroad for medical treatment, including kidney transplants. Even if we play fools, they take us for, with 255 health centres, health facilities are no longer a priority.
So, why build more health facilities? It is a shame that Ikuku still fancies “the more you look, the less you see” government that made him the object of criticism and hate.
In 2011 at the Ojez Place Surulere, the Special Adviser on Diaspora, Chief Kingsley Megwara, told journalists that the immediate past government had ensured a steady power flow in Umuahia and its surrounding areas.
He claimed that the government made it possible by injecting N1.2 billion into the PHCN project. He said:
“We now have an Umuahia where you don’t need a stabiliser anymore to power your air conditioner. If you’re a baker or a hairdresser there’s no need to buy petrol to power the little I-better-pass-my-neighbour generator. We’ve ensured steady power flow in Umuahia and its surrounding areas.”
So, what is the essence of empowering young people with power-generating sets when there is a steady power flow in Umuahia and its surrounding areas?
Aside from these, other notable achievements of Ikuku, publicised by his CPS, are the drilling of boreholes and renovation/construction of classroom blocks in Lorita and St Michael’s Primary Schools and Amazukwu Girls’.
I found it duplicitous and derisive that a man who was part of the administration that denied Umuahia and its surrounding areas; pipe-borne water is celebrating and publicising borehole water projects in the same constituency.
Subject to capacities, the prices of electricity transformers range from N1.9 million to N5 million. It costs approximately N1.5 million to drill and complete a borehole project.
If these were the headline projects of the Speaker of the Abia House of Assembly, who receives approximately N100 million monthly, he was not different from the professor who tricked his students into licking up a dead man’s anus.
Stay tuned till Monday next week.
