There is no doubt that many of us have lost confidence in the system because of past encounters and the ugly experiences we had. I know the pain myself but if there is one testimony I can quickly share with this audience, it is the fact that no power on earth is strong enough to stop a people who are determined to change their story. Our journey to change the political dynamics of Abia State started in 2014.
Long before the April 11 gubernatorial election in 2015, it had become clear to all and sundry that we were coasting home to victory. And we did. But through strange electoral manipulations and falsification of figures in a single local government area, the victory was stolen in broad day light. The vigorous attempts to undo the harm through established judicial process were unsuccessful and our opponents continued to celebrate and gloat. We tried again in 2019 but the process was a lot messier. We could have given up at this time but we simply became more determined. Four years later, we returned to the arena, this time with an even greater resolve to confront the system that had held our state down for decades. Again, we began to mobilise. Many, I must admit, became weary after nearly ten years of failed expectations. But amongst throngs of supporters, the hunger for change had become more fervent.
The election took place on March 18, 2023 and because of the collective resolve of our people and the good judgement of electoral officials, especially, the Returning Officer, Prof. Nnenna Oti, who resisted all forms of pressure to compromise the process, Abians eventually had their long-awaited victory four days after on March 22, 2023. As I look back on our encounters and experiences in the years leading to 2023, I cannot but wonder what could have been the fate of the thousands of pensioners whose entitlements were withheld for years or the civil servants who could no longer feed their families because the government at the time had literally bankrupted the State and could no longer meet its obligation to the workers. What could have happened to them if we had given up in the middle of the road when it seemed like we were destined to fail again, and again?
On account of the resilience of our people, things are different today because not only do we pay our pensioners and civil servants by the 28th of every month without fail, we have also taken steps to defray what they were owed by previous governments. In March this year, we paid N10 billion as pension arrears to our retirees and just recently, workers in various tertiary institutions and parastatals in the State began to share messages of excitement to their families and friends after we paid them part of their N17.6b accumulated salary arrears. The question I kept asking as I was looking at the videos that flooded social media platforms was: what could have happened if our people had lost faith in the project and surrendered to the forces that made life miserable for these hardworking men and women?
In the last 16 months, more than two hundred billion naira has been committed to road construction and rehabilitation projects in different parts of the State. A good number of the roads we are currently fixing had been abandoned since the mid-1990s leading to business closures and economic discomfort for individuals and families. Beyond what we are doing on the surface of the roads, what is happening beneath is equally as important. Presently, several kilometres of underground drainage channels have been cleared of debris to make for easy flow of rainwater. The interesting thing is that for a very long time, no attempt was made to clear these canals. This failure led to serious flooding problems and losses particularly in Aba.
Within Aba and Umuahia, the emergency taskforce team which I announced minutes after we took our oath of office evacuated about 5,000 truckloads of solid wastes in the first few weeks. It may interest this distinguished audience to know that some of the heaps evacuated had accumulated for several years prior to our inauguration. Not too long ago, a video emerged of a large pile of refuse in a part of Aba and I quickly summoned my team to find out why we still had such sight anywhere in the city. I was told that the entire place had been inaccessible to human and vehicular traffic for years. People were only able to have access after we began working around the Obohia and Ohanku Roads. On account of our massive infrastructure restoration projects across these forgotten communities, people are beginning to see new rays of hope as families are quickly returning to their old homes and as expected, new businesses are rapidly springing up.
Before May 2023, large parts of Umunneochi and Isuikwuato Local Government Areas had fallen to various violent gangs who kidnapped, robbed, raped, maimed and killed our people at will. Thousands of residents fled their communities and all social events in the areas became very risky undertakings as guests were bound to be attacked. Restoring order to these towns and villages was amongst our earliest commitments. Resources and men were mobilised with one single objective: to flush out the criminals and retake territorial control.
Our efforts to repossess government lands and other public property that were illegally appropriated by previous government functionaries and their cronies have also been commended by non-partisan individuals and even opponents who are glad that we have the political will to do the right thing.
The roads we are fixing, the public buildings and transport infrastructure development projects are for public use. When we pay salaries and pensions, we do not ask for the identities of those who supported us and those who did not. Everyone is paid what is due them irrespective of their political or religious views, or where they came from. The fruits of good governance is therefore for everyone, just as everyone becomes a victim of bad governance because no matter your political or religious affiliation, we all go to the same market, pay the same prices for goods and services, and when armed robbers or kidnappers block the road, no distinction is made between one victim and the other. The logic is that all of us must get involved because the fate of this country is in our hands.
It may interest this special audience to know that the secret of our modest success in Abia is the abiding consciousness that we are here because the people worked hard to bring about a new set of leaders with a different orientation to governance. The least we can do is to serve them faithfully using available resources as a way of strengthening their commitment to the New Abia project. To restore law and order to the places that were previously overrun by criminal gangs, we did not recruit new security operatives from the moon. No. We simply motivated the existing team, gave them the necessary support and asked them to move in and make the communities safe for all of us. The same can be said of the sanitation team that evacuated tonnes of refuse from the streets of Aba and Umuahia in the early days of the administration. It was the same staff who had been dormant at the various offices of the State's Environmental Protection Agency (ASEPA). We only motivated and gave them the tools they needed to achieve a different outcome.
Through direct labour initiatives, hundreds of kilometres of road have been rehabilitated and fixed in different parts of the State. It is interesting to note that much of these projects are executed by the engineers and technical staff at the State Ministry of Works. Before now, these officers were merely restricted to unsatisfactory job routines in their offices and others simply had nothing to do. The story is similar at the State Ministry of Lands and Housing where we are also using direct labour and internal human resources within the Ministry to fix and restore our public buildings. This approach has expanded the capacity of our local professionals and also helped us to cut costs tremendously.
The theme of this Conference aptly points us to the need to work for the enthronement of a new governance paradigm across the federating units. We have wasted so much time doing the same thing repeatedly. The expectation is that the outcome will be different with continuous repetition of the same old practices. Unfortunately, just like Albert Einstein said, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Nothing will change in our governance outcomes unless there is a fundamental shift in the way we appreciate democracy, interact with elected representatives and mobilise ourselves to achieve certain specific and general outcomes. One takeaway from my message today is that we can no longer afford to be docile. We must be interested because according to Plato, "one of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
Every month when I sit down with journalists, bloggers and ordinary citizens for a no-holds-barred interview session, I am often confronted with very difficult questions about everything. I go home at the end of each engagement more determined to deliver on the promises that brought us to power because the average person in the State is actively following everything we are doing. Questions are drawn from our written campaign manifesto and promises made verbally at the campaign stops. Evidently, the people appreciate what we are doing but they want more. We understand their hunger for an overnight turnaround but in the midst of competing needs and very limited resources, things will have to progress in phases. As I said recently at the University of Buckingham, development is about the sequence of steady progress. The most important thing is that we are constantly communicating our position, highlighting achievements and challenges, and defining measures put in place to overcome them and achieve more for the people.
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Within the broader national context, what the Abia story teaches us is that the destiny of every community is in the hands of the common people. In a democracy, however, everyone is as important as the other. As patriots, the ball now is in our courts to rededicate ourselves to the cause of building a new Nigeria. It is still not late and I am optimistic that despite present setbacks and betrayals, we shall just get it right in time. Remember, the only time this cause will fail is when we surrender. We have to quickly get involved in the politics of our local communities because ultimately, the best way to develop a new template for governance is to create a new culture of community participation in public affairs, starting from where we live, where we work and all the places where we want to see things change for the better. Let me assure us that we shall get it right if we step out of our comfort zones and begin to mobilise ourselves to work for a better future. This is a race for the future and only the willing and determined will win. Let us come together and write a more fitting narrative of our dear nation over the next few decades.
Concluded.
Dr Otti, OFR, is the Executive Governor of Abia State. This concludes the excerpts of his lead paper at the 54th Annual Conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) which held in Abuja recently.
