Governor David Umahi is annoying in his interpretations of the privileges of office he shares with his brother Governors. His boast on the consequences of lockdowns in the South East is delivered with an imperial, imperious, impervious, impetuous bearing that casts doubt on his appreciation of his roles as the viceroy of Ebonyi State, and head of the ruling park in the South East.
Peoples of the South East are on their own. Whatever fate befalls them would not be redeemed by either the Federal Government or their Governors who are more interested in collecting VAT than the security of the population that would generate the VAT.
South East is a victim of twisted tales that have spawned in ways that hold everyone responsible for the wasteland the region is becoming while excusing those who should be ashamed of their failure to act with the importance of their offices in saving their people.
Umahi’s arrogance in the collective failure of our Governors to protect the South East is what he rubbed on our faces. Governors will be protected, and so will their families. It is none of their business if we die, or are constrained by forces beyond us, Umahi reminded us.
Twisted tales about the South East include that IPOB, a banned organisation, whose leader is incarcerated, is more powerful than the armed forces and security agencies of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Does IPOB have more resources than the billions of Naira Governors pocket as security vote?
IPOB is not Boko Haram. Why would it disrupt our present, compromise our future and our Governors are not concerned? IPOB is the reason for everything that is going wrong in South East and it is seen as the peoples problem, not the Governors?
Nigeria has got the South East where it wants. None of these troubles would have been possible without self-serving Governors who do anything to protect themselves and their prosperity.
Anyone who knows how President Muhammadu Buhari sees the South East knows he will be glad about where the South East is. It has been storified as a notorious security zones unfit for Buhari’s attention except as anecdotes in his speeches, and testing ground for security out posts.
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The part of Nigeria with the most number of security check points per square meter suffers the highest number of announced security breaches. The message is muddled in befuddlement of elevating IPOB to a super force that takes down South East any day it wants.
A more plausible setting is that the people do not have enough confidence in their governments to protect them. Those who dare to be on the streets on those days risk arrests by government security agents that would tag them IPOB members.
Our people have decided to save themselves by dreading an IPOB that has consistently denied those attacks and their governments that cannot protect them. They are wise enough to know that like His Excellency Umahi said, the shutdowns do not affect the Governors.
Which President would justify his lack of care for a part of the country with awarding them ownership of the economy? It is the sort of mockery that proves that Buhari knows what he is doing.
He is unaffected. He is too detached and distant to agree that the South East does not exist merely to serve as the testing ground for his jokes.
Did Buhari exclude States in the North West or North East from federal projects because of insecurity? Have those States been garrisoned to match their state of insecurity?
Our Governors have found the perfect excuse in IPOB for doing nothing about anything. What were they doing before IPOB became an issue? Will they waste the next two years pointing at IPOB for their glaring failings?
Governor Babagana Umara Zulum of Borno, 52, is able to do so much with bullets flying over his head. His convey was attacked at least four times in 2020. In one incident more than 30 people were killed. The attacks have not stopped. Have they become excuses for doing nothing?
It is worth repeating that our governments should protect us. When they promised security, they never put IPOB in the exclusion list. Now, they think IPOB is the issue, they should deal with it – decisively.
No excuses, no reasons justify the constant shutdown of the South East except that the pains and losses do not affect those who should act.
Thanks very much Umahi for being truthful and generating a new narrative, on the South East, that should not be lost in the lingering platitudes about IPOB.
FINALLY…
WHEN Governor Abdullahi Ganduje was accused in a viral video of receiving bribes, enemies were blamed. Allegations of corruption are swirling in the Ganduje household again. This time they are familial. Ganduje’s son Abdulazeez has reported his mother Mrs. Hafsat Ganduje to EFCC for refusal to make refunds after her failure to deliver on prime property sale to Abdulazeez’s business partners. Abdulazeez said he paid money in dollars into his mother’s account. The property in question belongs to Kano State Government.
CHIEF Femi Fani-Kayode’s rights to associate with who he pleases, reason as he wishes, and speak as his spirits lead him are enshrined in the Constitution. Those who remind him of his remarkable past should also worry over whether the All Progressives Congress, APC, ever stood for anything wholesome.
SOMEONE in the Presidential Villa should sent a cup of tea to a certain Chief Joe Igbokwe who complains that his parched throat has been neglected while APC fraternalises with enemies right up to the attention of President Buhari. Igbokwe also needs phone calls to assuage him. These matters should be treated as emergency, a life is involved.
