Okorocha: Between amnesia and delusion

Filthy politics has corralled an otherwise lively state of Imo, in the South East of Nigeria to a limbo. Hollowed out by years of misrule, the state of bountiful intellectual flair and voluble economic industry is currently a shadow of itself. Locked in emergency political ward with evidence of mass hunger, high youth unemployment and restiveness, dearth of rural infrastructure to transform agriculture into competitive economic advantage and the overburdening of the local population with dubious administrative structures of autonomous communities, the State is in total dire straits.

Notwithstanding, the structural decadence that has stretched for nearly two decades in a straight row, the current governor of the state, Mr Rochas Okorocha threatens to sink the state deeper into a bottomless abyss. Though, with eloquent warnings and evident hand writings that things cannot continue to get worst for the people of Imo State, Governor Okorocha powered by forgetfulness and delusions surges on even more desperately, to turn an ignominious new leaf for the state, this time, as a banana republic enclave, shared out to trusted family members.

Mr. Rochas Okorocha forgets that he was elected the governor of Imo State against the will of well-oiled and rampaging ruling party with a powerful and vicious federal government to boot. Then, a candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) his personal wealth, which he likes to boast about, and political exposure which consisted mainly in his serial defections from one party to another was not match at all, to the rampaging force of the all conquering PDP political machine.

All he had was the indomitable political will of the mass of the Imo people who are determined to make a historic political statement of an assured victory for the “powerless conscience when pitted in an epic clash with conscienceless power.” Governor Rochas Okorocha triumphed in that epic clash, sweeping to office on an unprecedented activism and direct political action of the people of Imo State, who camped out at the collation centre of the electoral commission for three days, thwarting every efforts of the ruling party to rig the results of the election. The militant masses of Imo State even prevented the allegedly compromised returning officer from leaving the premise to instigate inconclusive electoral process. Such was the epic political activism and popular goodwill, that heralded Mr. Okorocha to office but now in a feverish tribute to his personal amnesia, Mr. Okorocha thinks and believes that only him and what he calls his political family on a “rescue mission,” which actually is more like a “capture mission” should call the shots in Imo State. Since his election as the governor of Imo State, Mr. Okorocha has exercised his imaginations in the ways that have scandalized critical innovations, rationality and even commonsense.

Apart from entrenching nepotism in its barest form, planting his wife to oversee as many as four ministries, having his children’s hand on the state’s pie and appointing his sister to a nebulous ministry of happiness, his latest antics to impose his son-in-law to the governorship seat, he will vacate soon has stirred global outrage. Yet, the man is not deterred. Letting his delusions run wild, he forget that the people of Imo State, secured him the governorship seat, in defiance to a mightier and more vicious power than he is currently.

Ignoring the recent lessons of the state, for which he is the prime beneficiary, Mr. Okorocha is bent on repeating the ignominious history of about eight years ago, when the organized force of impunity and arrogance was humbled by existential people’s power in the State.

Ever since he was elected on the ticket of APGA, Mr Rochas Okorocha has never been humble, but his appetite for a rampaging emperor grew dramatically, after he defected to the ruling All Progressive Congress and in rubbing shoulders with Aso Rock on a routine basis, he has mistaken his status as elected officer and increasingly functioned as a sole administrator, unaccountable to the actual people he oversees their affairs.

In nearly a decade of misrule, Mr Rochas Okorocha has collapsed all the formal structures of government in the state to his personal cult and family kinship, establishing a family network that has trumped formal institutions of the state public service. His signature innovation of three working days in a week elicited universal ridicule and faded away. But he left his mark in the annals of history when he chose to mould the statue of former South Africa’s President Mr. Jacob Zuma at a whopping sum speculated to be in the region of over half a billion naira. As heavy as the burden of Governor Okorocha has become, people in the state try to make light about his infamy by joking of whose next statue is to be moulded. However, his more terrific misdemeanours that left an enduring sour taste was inviting the state senior citizens, who are pensioners to forfeit a sizeable percentage of their pension entitlements, after owing them arrears and backlog of payments. A number of these senior citizens have passed away, bruised and bitter that the state they tirelessly worked to build left them in destitute at their hour of need, even for what they are legitimately entitled to.

His acolytes in the ruling APC, including the deputy governor, Mr Eze Madumere who served him loyally for twenty five years, now at dagger-drawn with him for handpicking his son-in-law, Mr Uche Nwosu were all his quiet accomplices ass he roast and traduce the state. Therefore, their open quarrel now is nothing but the routine and usual quarrel among thieves during booty sharing. Their prospects to mend fences and reconcile is quite high as far there is booty to be shared behind the back of the people of Imo State.

Gladiators in the other political parties in the State are not inspiring. Despite the depressing array of contenders on offer, Imo State must elect a chief executive of the state in 2019, and one of them would eventually occupy the seat of the governor of the state. while the delusion of Mr. Okorocha to foist his son-in-law as the governor of the state is emphatically foreclosed, if the recent history of mass political resistance in the state is any meaningful guide, the only way to forestall the emergence of another emperor Rochas Okorocha is eternal political vigilance that can be achieved through strengthening civil community based organizations and resisting the cannibalization of communities through the administrative fragmentation of the so-called autonomous communities and imposition of dubious characters as Ezes and Chiefs.

Imo State people must develop crossstate civic organizations to hold leadership in the state accountable and punish infractions with devastating electoral defeats, the type that stare Mr Rochas Okorocha and his acolytes in the face, right now.

Mr. Onunaiju is journalist and public affairs commentator based in Abuja.