By Uche Aguoru

ABIA STATE: The time is 4.46 pm the vultures had gathered, about to devour the carcass, all clad in their umbrella designed attire and in a mood very familiar while beating the usual drum of political endorsement and clinging on to their finely shaped political deep purse with a well arranged double edged phraseology prepared to shoot like the pythons tongue, It started from a political 419er whose antecedents in the game of political fraudmanship can be described as legendary and whose meal must come from the state purse.

The political mugu in 2002 was Orji Uzor Kalu, but due to political differences and misunderstanding, T.A. Orji escaped the endorsement hoax, having missed that target and typical of all professional scam artistes, he patiently waited for another opportunity and on spotting the opening in a governor who is hungry for popularity he quickly schemed his way back to PDP, Dr. Okezie Victor Ikpeazu PhD, must be scammed, and alas the mother of all endorsement was perfected and carried out in a lavish ceremony that attracted all the native doctors across Ukwa/Ngwa, all the food is ready politicians in Abia state, not leaving out the gullible but sincere ones who were ensnared or intimidated into the arena with a vague picture of the real intent of the organisers, ofcourse the impoverished youths and civil servants who have been starved to a point that they are now looking for an opportunity to have a plate of rice and 500 naira in their pockets because they have not received their salaries in months were not left out, our loving Governor who has been unable to pay primary school teachers salaries for 5 months, secondary school teachers for 7 months, local governments workers salaries for 5 months, who had made it clear that salaries for Parastatals and agencies cannot be paid for lack of funds, who had technically abandoned pensioners and via body language advised them to go and die gently as their reward has been remitted to heaven because of lack of funds on our earthly purse, all of a sudden was able to dole out the sum of three hundred and twenty million naira (#320.000.000) from The state treasury for an endorsement party.

Being a realist and proponent of developmental criticism, I must acknowledge that Governor Ikpeazu had scored above his predecessors in the area of road infrastructure and the made in aba products promotion, I will also not fail to acknowledge the quality of roads and grade of contractors he had used in undertaking the jobs so far, while all that is dependent on the fact that we have been too comfortable with mediocrity over time that little things not comparative to obtainable standards in our neighbouring states of Rivers, Akwaibom, Ebonyi, Imo, Anambra and even Enugu have become so laudable in Abia that we have to roll out the drums in celebration even before the completion of a project.

If not for mediocrity one would begin to wonder why a political party like the PDP in Abia state will be celebrating each pillar erected in the Osisioma Interchange that is yet to record a reasonable level of progress in its construction two and half years after, when states that earn lesser in IGR and FAAC had built and delivered three fly overs within a period of one year and six months with little or no noise.

Does it not call for questioning that SETRACO will be constructing a 4.6 km Road at the cost of 6.8 Billion Naira in Abia without a time line attached and same SETRACO will deliver 6.6 Kilometer road at a contract sum of 2.4 Billion Naira in Rivers state less than 9 months?

Is it not a mark of insincerity and deception that our prudent governor is constructing the Osisioma flyover at a cost of N5bn without specified time of delivery attached where as governor Willie Obiano of Anambra state constructed Three (3) similar bridges at the sum of N5bn, which literarily means that what our prudent governor Ikpeazu is using to construct one (1) bridge, Gov. Willie Obiano of Anambra State have used same amount to build three flyovers that was delivered in 15 months, why would Gov. Dave Umahi of Ebonyi state build a fly over at the cost of 1.9 billion naira, and in Abia we are erecting same at the cost of 5 billion naira?

Is it not shameful that the much publicized, over dramatized and over advertised Ifeobara flood water drainpipes that we have been celebrating across the cyber space, air waves and in every television station across the length and breadth of the nation and beyond have not been put through critical or strenuous test to ascertain the strength, durability and resistance level of the draining machine if not why are we still experiencing heavy flooding across faulks road and entire Ariaria market over a light rainfall that lasted for not more than 2 hours plus.

Can anyone in good conscience justify the reconstruction of a less than one kilometer road between Isi court to eastern comfort hotel being undertaken at an unimaginable cost of nine hundred million naira (#900.000.000)?

If our so called stake holders have any atom of integrity or sincerity left in them, why haven’t they insisted on the process of open bidding for contracts so as to guarantee openness in the way contracts are being awarded and costs attached to projects?

The answer is simple; they are the beneficiaries and the masses, the victims.

Aguoru
Writes from Umuahia

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