By Odo Ijere
The startling but very revealing open letter of the 1st of December to the Governor of Abia State by Barrister Umeh Kalu will perhaps be another chart burster coming from God’s Own State after the unsavory remission of the Ikpeazu N500 disaster.
Barrister Umeh Kalu SAN has indeed by this open letter added brilliant and explosive footnote in the annals of Abia contemporary history which feats he never could achieve as Abia State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice.
For the great people of Abia State, Umeh Kalu’s letter is only reminiscent to Olusegun Obasanjo’s seminal to Nigerians during the heady days of 2019 electoral calendar. The spotlight that Umeh Kalu’s remission brought is only comparable to Obasanjo’s publicity mendacity.
You should also agree with me that for Abia to be pulled out of the mire, she must first pay the price of bad publicity. So let the publicists enter the fray for both the right and the wrong reasons. Abia will be better for it
But be that as it may, Umeh Kalu’s star studded factual rendition coming as late as it has come, is a spectacular addition to the trending dialogue about the tales of unrelenting perfidy in Abia State.
It needs not to be emphasized that Umeh Kalu’s 10yrs as an insider in the precincts of Abia corridors of secret cult government holds most of the key to unlock the parody that underdeveloped and diminished God’s Own people and God’s own state.
Here are the samplers from the secret templars in Abia State parading as government of the people:
1. Ikpeazu refused to liberate himself and Abia people by the erroneous beliefs that he is man made governor instead of God made governor. That makes governor Ikpeazu among the few subhumans that doesn’t believe power comes from the almighty God the creator of all things.
2. Ikpeazu pays away at least half of Abia statutory allocations to frivolities in a feat of animated and unacceptable misgovernment. From security votes of N700 million naira every month, unarguably among the highest in Nigeria, security votes to the Speaker and others, stripping of LGA funds without any projects in the LGs and without paying salaries, devotion of less than 20% of total revenue to capital budgets with infinitesimal achievement in infrastructure, unable to generate commensurate IGR from Aba and being not able to account for the paltry that accrued because of concessions to vested interests, the fraudulent payment of 25% of Paris club refund to proxy consultants in a ploy to shortchange Abia people, etcetera etcetera.
3. Ume Kalu further proposes that retrieving and recovering at least 50% of these frivolous spendings from FAAC, JAAC, and others could free up to a monthly N5 billion to 7 billion naira that could be used to redeem this government in the remaining 18 months before it’s expiration in 2023.
Umeh Kalu SAN by his expose has driven the spear into the heart of corruption in Abia State. The entire government machinery, the executive, legislative and judiciary including the civil service are culpable in the rots that made Abia State a laughing stock.
All men of good conscience must come out to confront this evil practice going on as government in our state. As someone rightly posited, it’s time to lockdown Abia State government. What goes on there is a brutal rape on our democracy.
Odo Ijere.
