It’s Time Up For Ndi Abia Mayors
By Dr Odo Ijere
We read with fascination and the same time consternation of what seemed a rebuttal by ‘ndi Abia Mayors’ yesterday distancing themselves from their supposed plots to betray Dr. Alex Otti and the New Abia government.
In their press release yesterday, 16th of October, they claimed to be working for Dr. Alex Otti with all their hearts and good intentions. And that the vision of Dr. Alex Otti in bringing them in as development partners has been well served going by development paradigms around our 17 LGAs and accusing who they described as political desperados with intent to defocus their planned peaceful transition of their various LGAs to newly elected local government chairmen to continue from where they stopped.
The Mayors themselves in the press release also claimed to be responding to whistle blower articles accusing them of nocturnal and secret meetings to take their destinies in their hands by crosscarpeting to the APC. The Mayors were in some trending articles including mine that was captioned “deconstructing the mayors as new Abia trade unionists” specifically accused of negotiating to carry their mayoral offices into APC in a fit of ultimate games of political survival. What an audacious politrickal roguery? what an effrontery said to be playing out by supposed unelected officials?
This baloney if allowed to happen would have become another classic political review of ‘any goes in politics’ and thus spell doom for all of us. But interestingly, the mayors in their release didn’t disclaim the accusation of their intentional serial meetings in Abia North, Abia Central and Abia South. This obviously was coup plotting against the system that made them and of course are guilty of political rebellion as charged. They have the option now to massively resign their offices to save our democratic space from unintended political anomie.
No doubt the mayor’s press release would go for an effective damage control any day after the damage has already been done. The damage itself is an equivalent of a sin against the ‘holy spirit’ which our Holy Father in the scriptures had eloquently preached will never be forgiven. By corelation, no costly political mistake should be given a second chance. Again, that is gleaned from Niccolo Machiaveli’s letter to the ‘The Prince’ in the literary epic, ’48 laws of power’.
The truth is that the mayors took all of us for granted by throwing every caution to the wind. Now with their pants down, we’re getting information that four of them have written letters of apology to the governor and trying to implicate the other mayors that participated in the pustch. This is so disgraceful and unstatesmanly. The spread of ‘wotowoto’ and ‘potopoto’ is coming too fast. They should be apologizing to the whole state for taking us through unwholesome political thraldom.
If the Mayors had succeeded in their evil plots in transmogritizing to APC as alleged just like that, Abia politics would have become a laughing stock once again reliving the bad old days of Ikpeazu and his N500 naira maternity free grants to expectant mothers in the state. Chukwu aju.
By all accounts, this mayoral mispeak is another orchestration of failure that must be nipped in the bud. Our political leaders must be held accountable for their actions and inactions. Dr. Alex Otti took huge political and constitutional risks by appointing them to mayoral offices and without doubts, they have disappointed everybody by their disingenuous political force majure. They should Go now, before they commit more unforced errors and plunge the state to irredeemable halakiri.
The present handlers of Abia State should not entertain further delays in depositing the mayor’s political extra loads resting on our necks. They have outlived their intellectual and political usefulness and clearly are in their diminishing bend. Delay is dangerous, let the mayoralty come to an end.
If the time is too short for new transition portfolios to be created, the mayors can be asked to hand over to the HOS of their various local governments. It has become too dangerous and politically inexpidient to trust them to drive the remaining processes leading to electing and handing over the LGAs to newly elected holders under today’s oscillating atmosphere of political impasse and distrust. Ndi Abia, ekeleem unu.
Dr. Engr Odo Ijere
Okpotemba Ohafia.
