Abia’s anniversary of liberation

How time flies! It seems like yesterday yet it is four years ago. Pushed to the wall, with history beckoning, with his eyes set on the future and destiny of the over ten million people of Abia State, Governor Theodore Orji led the revolution that conquered the ancien regime and brought liberation to a people in bondage. He confronted a seemingly invincible dynasty and brought freedom to a vanquished and speechless people.

Today,  as Nigerians celebrate the Democracy Day, the people of God’s Own State would be remembering the history of their liberation. But, more importantly,  it  would  be a time for a thoughtful  review, a time to assess the grand march to freedom, a  time to put the governor  on the scale. The light-bearer of the people’s mandate will be in the dock again for cross-examination, to give account of his stewardship.  

How has Abia fared in the hand of the liberator?  Where was Abia yesterday and where is Abia now? What is the experience of   the people in the new life of freedom?

These questions, among other things, would occupy the minds of Abians. Indeed, it would be a happy realisation and a great moment of satisfaction to recall the quantum leap that Abia has made by virtue of the liberation. The stock-taking would be a vindication for Governor Orji because the Abia situation was peculiar. For Orji, it has been a concerted effort to build afresh, to lay solid foundation, to set the state on the path of progress.   

But, let’s keep the galaxy of monuments and the legacy projects aside, though they are great footprints in the sands of time. In my personal evaluation, Governor Orji’s greatest legacy for which posterity must sing eulogies is in the intangibles, like his deed of gift of freedom to the people of God’s Own State. For, as Voltaire, the French Philosophy of the Enlightenment noted, freedom is the parent of all the needs of the human spirit.

 Four years after, and just one year to go, Orji   is confidently stepping out to the market square to show himself approved a workman who does not need to be ashamed. For a people who have seen the two sides of tyranny and then freedom, they are better witnesses in this open trail. They are better judges and jurists in this open court of public conscience. 

Throughout the campaigns in 2011 and at the inauguration, Orji spoke about his covenant with the people.  He expressed determination to break off from the past, to lead Abia out of the doldrums. True to his words, he has led a successful revolution of the mind. The mental orientation towards politics and power in Abia has changed.  Orji enthroned true representative democracy where all Abians of every hue and colour could have a chance to serve.

In Abia today, it is the communities and the constituencies that make nominations for commissioners and other political offices.  The advisers and assistants are appointed based on merit, track record and competence. Today, meritocracy has been restored as against mediocrity. In the past, it was a case of class distortion and class destruction wherein the elite became endangered species while goons and lay-about became the ruling class.

Another great legacy of value is the stability and harmony that Orji has brought into the Abia polity. Starting from his administration, he has served with only two teams in the last three years. In the days of bondage, there would have been more than ten dissolutions or reshuffling of cabinet by now. Destiny thrust into his hands a society that was visibly at war, a state that was highly polarised where the parties were at daggers drawn. Precisely, he inherited war. But, he did not go the way of the Mosaic – an eye for an eye. He did not amass arsenals for a return fire. He chose the path of Mahatma Gandhi – truth, peace and reconciliation!   

He embarked on a mission of reconciling the state. He threw out an olive branch and threw the door of government house open. In the new air of freedom, the exiles returned home, the old fugitives returned home to embrace their erstwhile foes. The political war-farers laid down their arms and all, in one collective spirit, enlisted into the new vision of Abia. This was how the governor came to be the first National Peace Ambassador.

Indeed, as Orji stands at the open ground a few days from now to give account of his stewardship, one issue will be very pertinent. And that is that the first primary duty of government is the maintenance of law and order. This should be the mother of all assessments, the most paramount indices for measuring successful leadership. How has Abia fared under Orji in terms of law and order?  Abia, undeniably, has been an oasis of sanity. Orji’s Abia is standing tall in the federation as a model state in terms of law and order and social harmony, and this was not legislated into existence but a product of committed and pragmatic action.

In the midst of a country gripped by violence, where bloodshed either by accident or by deliberate  organized crime  make the headlines everyday in the papers, Abia State has remained an isolated case of a sort of heaven on earth where peace reigns and residents sleep with their doors wide open. And, I emphasise again, this did not come by fiat, neither by providence but a product of judicious and strategic governance. Governor Orji toiled day and night, tasked his brain and mind to attain this state for his people. Thus,   Orji is the builder of a new Abia of law and order.

In Abia today, the word equity and justice are now password. For the first time, a leader came in Orji who is setting the standard for justice by insisting that what is good for  the goose is also good for  the gander. He has continued to preach the gospel that equity and justice are necessary parameters for a people and a society to dwell in peace and harmony. Against all intense pressure, the governor has kept to his words that power must shift to the Ukwa Ngwa people of Abia State.  Orji is also a moral revolutionary.

This is but a brief testimonial for the Abia liberation, the vindication of the liberator. At the open ground, Like Paul of Tarsus, Governor Orji would stand on the podium, his hands spread out to the heavens, and say: “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith”.

Godwin Adindu