Corruption Scandals Rock Abia State

It is disturbing how Abia state, under the administration of Chief Theodore Ahamefula Orji, has been swimming from one scandal to the other. (Picture shows Governor Theodore Orji, smiling and looting Abia in grand style)

Just recently, Orji’s government sweated to deny an allegation of entering into a business deal with an American lady, identified as Mrs. Miranda Nwadieyi. Mrs Nwadieyi had alleged that she was shortchanged in a contract to supply T.A Orji’s government 1, 500 units of Chevrolet cars valued at N3.3 billion after paying a contract fee of N11.8 million.

But Kingsley Emereuwa, Chief Press Secretary to the governor, in a press conference, denied that neither the state government nor any of its officials had a hand in the alleged financial scam.

Succinctly, the version of the story being hyped by T.A Orji’s government is that the so-called Mrs. Nwadieyi had, sometime ago, in the company of a man whom she claimed as her husband, approached the state government with a proposal for a supply of 3, 000 units of Chevrolet cars for a taxi scheme in the state. The proposal, claimed Emeruwa, was rejected because of non-viability of the proposal.

But the point remains that Mrs. Nwadieyi’s is just one out of numerous corruption scandals trailing Theodore Orji administration in Abia state.

On Thursday January 7, a group, Abia Elders Forum, in Aba, raised an alarm that Governor Orji intends to raise his security votes from the current N450 million to N700milion per month. Abia Elders Forum is a foremost political pressure group of eminent politicians, professionals and retired public officers from Abia state.

The Forum alleged plans on the part of the governor to get the State House of Assembly to hurriedly approve the increase through ‘a clandestine but farcical emergency session to be held inside Government House so as to evade public scrutiny‘.

Said the Forum: “At N700m per month, it means the Governor would be pocketing a princely N8.4billion per annum as security vote for which he is not accountable to anyone. It was scandalous enough that he has been taking out N400m per month since he came into office as security vote.  Raising the vote to N700m at a time the state’s economy has completely collapsed under the weight of dubious debts incurred since June 2007 and sustained and systematic looting of the treasury indicates a tragic intention to destroy the state’s economic base“.

The Forum’s Director of Publicity, Hon Uchenna Kalu, observed that by the time the increment becomes law, the state would ‘have the dubious distinction as the only state in Nigeria where the Governor’s security vote is higher than the combined capital votes for education, health and agriculture.’

It is worthy to note that this increase in security vote is against the backdrop of the fact some workers in the public service had not received their salaries since August 2009.

These corruption scandals, to say the least, are unbecoming of a governor that had gone to prison once as a result of alleged corrupt practices. Although there could be undertones of politics in the allegations, the issues being raised have not been substantially dispensed off by the T.A administration.

There are even claims that the governor himself and some highly placed officials of his government have, rather than developing the state for the common good, been buying up personal houses and properties in the Capital Territory of Umuahia.

The increase of the security vote from N450 million to N700 million means that Governor Orji smiles home with an additional ‘unaccounted for’ N250 million every month from the coffers of Abia state.

And what is the propriety of this action when a section of the civil servants in the state are owed arrears of salaries and other entitlements?

Theodore Orji should watch the corrupt tendencies of his administration; otherwise, he is likely to end up in the prison after he had served as Chief of Staff to the preceding Orji Uzor Kalu administration in the state.

It is incontestable that T.A Orji has nothing to show for his almost three years of governance of Abia state. Like in the Orji Uzor Kalu era, Abians cannot boast of pipe-borne water, good roads, housing, medicare and, indeed, other social amenities. Rather, it has been reports of looting and primitive accumulation of wealth at the expense of the good people of the state.

This situation of inactivity in the governance of Abia state must stop.

It is to this effect that KlinReports hails the alarm raised by Abia Elders Forum against the governor’s avarice. All hands must be on deck until Abians get a government they deserve.