By Okechukwu Ukpa
The more things change, the more they stay the same, the French writer, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, wrote in 1849. It is, therefore, not surprising that nine years after he was fuming in the mouth in political fits, he will resort to same crass tactics of name-calling, absolute falsehood and dubious claims to be noticed in 2023, barely 2 months of he and his ilk falling from power.
Like the typical bird, chichidodo, in Ayi Kwei Armah’s novel, The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, that screams its lungs out in protestation of shit, yet feasts on maggots, so is the fate of Eze Chikamnayo, a failed commissioner of (mis)information under the calamitous rule of the immediate past administration in Abia state.
Chikamnayo is regarded in many quarters as a metaphor of confusion, an ironic hypocrisy, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a ghost in human flesh, a doppelganger and a political maggot who grow best in the foul-smelling lavatory of hypocrisy and patronizing intrusiveness.
For clarity and for those who may not be in the know of the character and content of the roguish and tout-like Mr. Chikamnayo, he once postured as a rabid vuvuzela of decency and accountability. He was up in arms against some of the people who were in government in Abia state but ended up being a diseased defender of the same ruinous years in the state as Commissioner of Information.
Owing to the fact that proverbs (ilu) are “the salt with which words are eaten,” it is appropriate to remind Mr. Chikamnayo, whose law practice remains at best a charge and bail affairs that, Ijiji na-enweghi onye ndumodu na-eso ozu ala n’inyi (A fly that has no counselor follows the corpse to the grave.)
In the event he fails to grasp the import of the above, then, it is instructive he knows that, O bulu na i taa m aru n’ike, ma i zeghi nshi; mu taa gi aru n’isi, agaghi m ezere uvulu (If you bite me on the butt, despite the danger of sinking your teeth into fecal matter, then if I bite you on the head, I will disregard the danger of sinking my teeth into cerebral matter.)
On July 25, the propagandist of the last locust era went caustic in a piece of lies, conjectures and insidious intrusiveness against not just the Office of the Governor of Abia State, but the person of His Excellency, Dr. Alex Otti. Ordinarily, it is a piece borne of inherent mischief and pathological disorder. But like in all situations of aru (madness), it requires a potent no less corrosive, but effective in curing.
Otti the democrat
We no longer live in an age without meaning and where there is a struggle for definition. But unfortunately, Mr. Chikamnayo is unaware of this when he sounded like a bad record player that Governor Otti is not a democrat for insisting that those who presided over the Abia patrimony in the immediate past eight years should account for their years in office.
Unlike those he served, Dr. Otti has always trusted in the sacredness of the ballot as a veritable means of electing leaders. And on each occasion he ran for the governorship, he worked in consonance with the laid down guidelines, shrugging off thuggery, ballot snatching and attempting to induce electoral officials which are hallmarks of Chikamnayo’s horde.
Regrettably for the purveyors of the ancien regime in Abia, the democratic credentials of Governor Otti remains unassailable. When they were trying to undermine the peoples wish especially in Obingwa Local Government Area in the last election, Candidate Otti as he then was, trusted in the integrity of the electoral umpire to do what was right by law, and the INEC did and the whole shroud of attempt to manipulate, induce and subvert the credibility of the ballot by Mr. Chikamnayo’s crowd of the indolent failed and the rest is their being of office and power.
What manner of democrat did Mr. Chikamnayo serve under who hires and fires Local Government Area Transition Committee Chairmen barely after 20 days? So much for a democrat who failed to hold council polls until the dying embers of a pathetic period in office. Because the mad man knows no shame, he prances about in the market place with his phallus dangling proudly to the shame of his kith and kin. Such is the folly of Chikamnayo!
No brainer on accounts
It is a surprise that Mr. Chikamnayo is such adept at finances yet could not offer such services in the administrations he served. Well, his financial ability is but a stinking lavatory of moral excrement. His claims of how much the Abia statement government has garnered is rusty and pales into the pitiable pit the government he served left it.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Okezie Ikpeazu empire which he was a part of left a humongous debt burden of N191.24bn and an empty treasury when he handed over the affairs of the state to Dr. Otti on May 29.
It is an incontrovertible fact that the sum of N77,927,939,042.82 was owed banks in the country, N71,022,162,441.01 was owed as domestic debt while external debts liabilities was put at N42,289,206, 109.84. A further breakdown of the indebtedness shows that of the N77,927,939,042.82 owed banks, United Bank for Africa accounted for N8,012,830,371.44; Zenith Bank N21,557,168,761.71; Union Bank N597,637,399.55 and Central Bank of Nigeria N47,760,302,510.12.
For the domestic debt obligation, salaries and subvention arrears stands at N18,162,102,692.92; pension arrears N21,283,876,789.80; gratuity arrears N27,012,996,061.64; and contractors arrears N4,563,186,896.65.
The good news is that Dr. Otti towers above the mediocrities of Chikamnayos’ in financial mileage, business acumen and governance provenance. Blocking leakages in the area of ghost workers and revenue loss in the scatter-gun administration of parks will not be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. The former (mis)information commissioner can be forgiven since order and lawful means are an anathema to him and his congress of baboons. The hard work of resetting the Abia Project will not be mortgaged for those who have no scruples.
The failed SDP political hawker without scruples can bray from now till eternity, his shenanigans to be noticed is what it is –nothing!
Dr. Otti is leading a team of dedicated men and women working with surgical precision to diagnose the Abia predicament, unleash the creative and industrious energies of Abians; there is a sense of a powerful current tearing down an old decrepit system, he is building a new ordered freedom based on the rule of law and human rights. And not a thousand clanging cymbals of Chikamnayo and the tribe of the aggrieved will stop the Abia Renaissance.
Ukpa, a public affairs commentator, wrote in from Ohafia, Abia State.
Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent our views.
