When Imo State governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha,
told TELLmagazine that “my vision drives me crazy,” many
people did not take his words literally.
In November 2016, he tweaked the statement a little, this time
saying his love for Imo State keeps him from sleeping. “I
find it difficult to sleep now because I want to change the entire face of
Imo,” he said.
Noble sentiments expected of a leader who means well for his
people. But more than six years on the saddle, many Imolites are beginning to
wonder whether their governor was speaking metaphorically or literally because
his vision for the state (whatever it is) is not only warped, twisted and
crazy, but can only be conjured by a mind that is not attuned to reality. It is
tunnel vision.
The latest manifestation of such crazy vision is Okorocha’s
deification of South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma in
Owerri, ImoState capital, last weekend, when he unveiled a gigantic
statue in his honour.
Zuma, who flew into the country on Friday, October 13, on what was
a “private visit,” was on the same day conferred with a traditional chieftaincy
title – Ochiagha Imo (Great Warrior) – by Eze Samuel Ohiri,
chairman of the state council of traditional rulers. Former President Olusegun
Obasanjo issued the title certificate.
On
Saturday, a life-sized bronze statue of Zuma standing at over25 metres and allegedly worth N520
million was unveiled with a road also named after him.
It is instructive that on the same Friday that Okorocha’s crazy
vision was on full display in Imo where civil servants have not been paid for
months and pensioners are regularly issued dud cheques, South Africa’s Supreme
Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that 783 counts of corruption involving a
multibillion-dollar arms deal be reinstated against Zuma.
In Zuma’s country, there was a huge sigh of relief. “Finally,
after almost a decade of ducking and diving, and squandering millions of rand
of public money on his own legal fees, President Jacob Zuma will now face 783
charges of corruption, fraud and racketeering for stealing the people’s money,” the
Mmusi Maimane-led Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition to the
governing African National Congress (ANC), said in a statement.
The case had dogged Zuma for years and though the charges were
dropped just weeks before he took office in 2009, a high court ruled
in 2016 that the decision to drop them was irrational. So, why was Zuma, a
villain at home, singled out for such honour in Owerri?
Gov Okorocha answers: “Today, we have decided to honour
you for your love for education, though you were deprived in your early days in
life but you are working to make sure that every poor child went to school.
Your love for education to us is the connection between you and government and
the people of Imo State.”
Okorocha’s claim throws up more questions than answers. When he
claims Zuma is working to ensure that every poor child went to school, the
question is, whose poor child is he talking about? How many Imo or Nigerian
students are studying on scholarship inSouth Africa courtesy of the Zuma
Foundation or even the South African government? How many dilapidated primary
and secondary schools in Imo has the Zuma Foundation rebuilt? What exactly is
the nexus between the Okorocha-trumpeted Zuma’s “love for education” and Imo
people?
No doubt, Okorocha has reduced governance in Imo in the last six
and half years to an absurd level but this particular action is beyond the
pale.
Governance all over the world is a process driving undertaking.
You don’t govern a state on impulse. But in Imo, Okorocha’s whims and caprices
rule the groove. He abhors due process. He has an aversion for record keeping.
For him, power and its exercise are matters of indiscretion. In moments of
pique, he auctions Imo State without blinking. He has neither
conscience nor scruples. For all he cares, he has conquered Imo for eight years
and the state is his to plunder.
Doesn’t Okorocha know that the man he rolled out the red carpet
and pulled all his egregious stunts for last weekend represents all that is
wrong with leadership in Africa? Does he not know that Zuma’s presidency
has been scandal-ridden from allegations of corruption, some already proved in
court, to a lifestyle that is quite unbecoming of a leader of his status?
Last year, a South African court ruled that Zuma violated the
constitution by using $500,000 taken from the public treasury to upgrade his
private residence to accommodate his many wives and was ordered to refund the
money.
Under Zuma’s watch, many Nigerians have been murdered by both the
country’s security men and citizens. In fact, this honour came a few days after
another Nigerian, 35-year-old Jelili Omoyele, was murdered in South
Africa. None of the culprits has ever been convicted. Nigerians are routinely
harassed in South Africa without a whimper from Zuma.
With this award, Rochas has taken impunity to a contemptible
height. Like Zuma, Okorocha represents what ails our country. When late Chinua
Achebe says Nigeria’s problem is leadership, Okorocha is a quintessential
exemplar.
Zuma’s visit to Imo was private. He came to sign a memorandum of
understanding between his personal foundation, Zuma Foundation, and Rochas
Okorocha Foundation. Though that is wrong, strictly speaking, because those
foundations should be a matter of blind trust while both men are in office, but
it can even be excused if it ended at just two businessmen, who happen to
occupy government positions in their respective countries coming together to
promote their private businesses.
But public funds were used in promoting this strictly private
partnership. The N520 million allegedly used in erecting the statue belongs to
Imo people. The money used in hosting the lavish ceremony was taken from Imo
coffers. Was the money appropriated by the Imo State House of Assembly? The
answer is no.
Since Okorocha became governor of Imo State on May
29, 2011, there has been no difference between his personal purse and public
till. Activities of the Rochas Foundation have been largely funded with state
resources. I will not be surprised if the memorandum of understanding Zuma came
to sign has to do with Okorocha’s
private Eastern Palm University, which he admitted recently to
have partly funded with N500 million belonging to Imo people without their authorisation.
That is the level of impunity that Imo people are confronted with.
When he turned 55 years recently, it was a month-long celebration with 27 giant
cakes. For him, leadership has become puerile theatrics.
As a governor, Okorocha is neither accountable
to anybody nor any institution. He has become the god of Imo State,
boasting recently that any Imolite who wants to succeed in life must love him
because he is the sun that shines for the people. But even absurdity must have
its limits. Okorocha has taken this clowning in the name of governance too far.
*Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche, a
national newspaper published in Lagos, Nigeria
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