BY CHIBUIKE GODWIN ONYENDILEFU
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Abians without exception seem to have been beguiled by the sheer power of a mind numbing and well structured anti socio-economic and political propaganda, set to last for a long time.
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A Jehova’s Witness Awake magazine I once read theorised that if one is granted a peep into the mind of the self acclaimed hero, the shocking revelation will be that the true reason for his heroic act was for self gain after all.
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The deep insight in this seeming truism could be found in the dashed hope of Abia hapless populace who now seem to have been beguiled by the promises of a self acclaimed messianic hero who had no local evidence of prior selfless delivery that was of benefit to the people he claims to have come to serve.
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Abia is now trapped in a conundrum worse than Rehoboam’s Israel where the threat of the use of scorpions as state policy was so real that it prompted resistance.
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The only difference between the present regime and that of Israel consists perhaps only on Rehoboam’s unpretentious pre-warning of his intentions to chastise his people with scorpions rather than this present sheer manipulative beguilement of an unsuspecting populace using vain and deceptive falutine promises that are now clear to all that the government had no properly thought out strategy and capacity to achieve the illusionary Eldorado it promised Abia.
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How is it that a government who spent over eight years preparing for today is being tentative in all fronts?
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Why is our dear state lagging behind in the comity of states in delivering for the Abia it promised so much?
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A casual look at what some of the states are doing to assuage the present dire economic realities of today will leave even the most ardent supporter of this clueless regime disappointed and deeply repulsed by this unfair, stale and overhyped blame game of how the former government (un)created Abia.
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How come that the NLC, perhaps the dominant admirer of Labour Party, itself is reported to have expressed concern over the haphazard and formless payment of salaries especially the ministries and parastatals which had no issues during the Ikpeazu years?
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What kind of reform renders an entire state colourless, thoroughly uninspiring and lacking in the collective enthusiasm found where government is truly mindful of the welfare of its people?
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Should a pilot who promised to steady a mildly turbulent flight turn around to pass the passengers through the worst kind of prolonged horror before crashing the plane instead of saving it?
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A government that prioritizes the welfare of its citizens would follow and even overdo the examples of its peers to increase wages of staff, reduce work days to more than 5 times in two weeks, employ youths as Dr.Ikpeazu did to curb and curtail crime, add more money to the 2 billion it received from Federal government for its people, give them more rice than it received, allow immediate reduction of tuition fees for tertiary institutions, reduce the tax burden on okada and keke operators rather this daily threat to ban an banish them, create family responsibility farms for households where government would clear farms, give as short term palliative measure, improved seedlings and fertilizers at no cost to farmers and yet allow them keep the return on investment, crush on youths through youth centred programs that discourage crime instead of the threat to ‘crush’ youths forced into crime largely due to societal inequalities, stop the flipflop of government’s ill conceived knee jerk policies like the recent sack of government staff and perhaps lastly, expand the net of governance inclusiveness while avoiding sectionalism, predatory schemes and witch hunt as have become the new normal.
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Abia is for all of us, regimes will come and regimes will go.Let no one think of this space as belonging to him as would a bank or a private enterprise.
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Honestly, it will not work.
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