Having lived in Aba, Umuahia and Uturu for eight years (2001-2009) as a lecturer, I make this proposition: let T. A. Orji and Orji Kalu walk the streets of these towns separately and unaccompanied today and let us see who will be stoned between them. I can bet with my life that Gov. Orji’s villainous profile will manifest. For me, this is the simplest way to test both men’s acceptability and popularity.
Let us stretch this debate further; if there are no elders, real men, in Abia State, are there no patriots? Are we all saying that the state is an El Dorado? A paradise on earth? Are there no rooms for improvement? Are the craters in Aba hallmarks of modern civilization? Is the absence of vital social infrastructures the dividend of democracy?
In the absence of elders and patriots, what of women? I remember the Aba Women’s Riot of 1928. Can’t we have such an upheaval in the face of this non-development in Abia State? Where are Abia youth? What of pressure groups? Have all these constituencies been silenced or have they given up in frustration?
Have the media and students been cowed to stupor and haplessness? Is the decay in Abia beyond redemption? Do we outsource the remaining days of Orji to one of his colleagues or get President Goodluck Jonathan to appoint an administrator after the declaration of a state of emergency urgently? From where cometh answers to these posers!
Abians arise, stand up for your right, and do not allow your so-called elders to mortgage your life with the connivance of the governor. Your future is in your own hands. Take up the gauntlet. The saddest aspect of it all is that this man wants to retire to the senate at all costs! If, God forbid, he gets to the upper legislative chamber, he will establish his pugilism art this time against whoever he will replace in line with his bad habit!
With the paucity of vocal senior citizens in Abia, the time has come for the intelligentsia in Nigeria, market men and women and unemployed youth to take the bull by the horns and effect a positive change next year. They should not allow Gov. Orji to install a puppet which was the mistake Orji Kalu did against all oppositions and wise counsel. So, Kalu should be held vicariously for the disaster Ochendo and his clan of backers, especially the so-called hunger-ravaged “elders” represent.
Enough of these propaganda and online figments, cock-and-bull yarns and fairytales about Kalu through Abia State government-owned 247ereports exclusively set up to embarrass Kalu. As I said earlier, Kalu cannot be the problem of Abia. The insurmountable challenge is leadership vacuity.
To be fair to Ochendo, I know of some inherited “legacy” projects like the repainted old secretariat building, refurbished School Road Model Primary School, rehabilitated Dialysis and Ophthalmology Centre (former Alaoma Hospital), Umuahia, and the General Hospital at Amachara. I commend him for giving these and other uncompleted projects a facelift.
Has it ever occurred to Gov. Orji and Abia elders that if Kalu failed, he, as a powerful and imperial Chief of Staff for eight years, equally shares in the non-performance blame, if not more than Kalu? Just food for thought as we anxiously await his overdue exit. Finally, I ask, for the umpteenth time, where are Abia elders?

•Prof. Kehinde from Akure, Ondo State.-Concluded.

Where are Abia elders? (2)