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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Gov. Okorocha’s 2013 Budget, Ohakim to Be Blamed – By Prof. Nathan Protus Uzorma (JP)

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As a rational creature, every man tries to portray not only his intelligence and ability to respond to exigent situations but purports his response-ability, moral greatness and honesty in values and knowledge. This purporting makes even the drunk to first reply to even inexistent doubts on his being ignorant of what he is doing. Whenever you meet a drunk, the first things you will observe from his speeches are: ‘All is well!’ ‘Udo di!’, then followed by series of questions: ‘Do you think I’m drunk?’ ‘Do you think I don’t know what I’m doing?’, and then concludes with ‘A kparikwala!’ ‘Respect-kwa yourself now!’, etc. This attitude is a trait found not only in the drunk but in the madman and in their great uncle- The drunkest and maddest Wiseman.

The behavioural simulacrum between the drunk and the madman makes differentiating between them in terms of speech-making and claims of truthfulness, self-awareness and self-control difficult. Each is overruled by momentary or habitual self-justification. Not even Voltaire’s Pangloss can say precisely what scales to use in weighing the misfortunes the duo lead others into or judge the degree of sincerity in their pretences and claims. Each claims reasonability, self-awareness and being responsibly in total control of both himself and the situations or affairs at hand. Their self-mastery, assumptions and pretences are mere roles of the personae they mask, while the truth about their live-roles are assessed and noted by the audience- The non-participants in stage-roles, but sufferers of the purged emotions from the stage.

These perpetual stage actors and Sages in illusionary mind-world never believe they are irresponsible, prodigal, stupid; and misled by the illusive strange spirits controlling their psyches. The drunk has absolute sincerity in all his speeches; the mad has absolute certainty in being in total control of everything. But their great uncle- The Drunkest and most foolish wit, has absolute power, which as Lord Acton said, corrupts absolutely. The third category of the ‘Udo di!’ comprises of the politicians, the non-charismatic leaders (who either usurped power or by freaks of fate and greed or jealousy, engendered by vicariousness, got to leadership stool), of totalitarians and sadists of sundry inclinations. They are characterized by that same tone of the drunk and the insane. According to Prof Wole Soyinka (Play of Giants), “the tone, the varied disguises of their ‘ignorance’ left me with the confirmation of a long held suspicion that power calls to power, that the brutality of power evokes a conspiratorial craving for the phenomenon of ‘success’ which cuts across all human occupations”. This conspiratorial craving for ‘success phenomenon’ comes as a result of obvious unpreparedness, unfitness and emptiness of a vicarious-born and circumstantial leader.

Leaders are born, not made: Not installed by conspiracy, not imposed or by the self-equation of power-hungers to charismatic (or born-) leaders, which are propelled by vicariousness. A leader or power-position occupant borne out of vicariousness is not a leader and can never become a charismatic type, neither by self-equation nor simulating born-leaders. Thus, a vicarious power is the type of influence (-both experienced interiority and exerted effectuations) that arises by a self’s résumé of leadership position and privileges, an imitation and self-comparison with leaders, and inordinate quest to be in the apex leadership-stool at all costs, which by and large become felt-internal urge to experienced interiority that arises by watching, observing, assessing or studying about power-position holders, rather than being propelled by the innate leadership qualities that notch-mark the charismatic leader. Leaders whose emergences are from this backdrop are always psychopathic, and the ailing psychosis holds them spellbound to dine with the drunk and the insane. These certified psychopaths are sustained in power at various periods by group interests, by the cheer-leaders among the intelligentsia who intentionally willed ignorance than their incessant erring being fortuitous.

What is at stake here is why are the psychopaths claiming sanity; still being applauded by the cheer-leaders among the intelligentsia. I prefer calling them psychopaths than sycophants or the Socratic concept, Ignorant. Perhaps the masses, which obviously are always rented, are influenced or deceived by the Master Courtier, the conmen and political office holders in the State. These conmen according to Thomas Sowell, know that their job is not to use facts to convince sceptics but to use words to help the gullible to believe what they want to believe.

For nearly two years now, Imo State has witnessed the highest degree of con-artistry. Like ‘the arts’ or ‘the arts-family’ that some liberal minded progressivist aestheticians project to include the theatre arts, creative arts, literature and myths (really, a motley-crew of arts), the State’s con-artists consist of the top Government functionaries (which Governor Okorocha is the head-actor, Master Courtier and Orator Magnus), les applaudisants foules and their cheer-leaders who have idyllically remained piccolo adulto in objectiveness, the group-minded cultivators of perpetual nepotism, the politically impotent intelligentsia, haughty party-stalwarts, outlaws of sadistic world-mind and elites whose lack of self-opinionated remain always praise-singers of every administration, not for objectivity purposes but for the egoistic fact of wishing to remain always relevant to every Dick and Harry leader. Once the leader is relieved of his position, they turn their choreographed and dancing legs to the next available eventful arena where their ‘notice me audience’ and dancing dexterity must be noticed at all costs.

As the Master Courtier, Governor Okorocha remains a graduate of Robert Green’s school of thought. He disarms and infuriates even imaginable opponents ever before they finalise on pillorying him. He prefers and majors in the Narcissus effect of courting antics and strategies. Rochas looks deep into the souls of the uninformed Imolites (I mean even the learned and elites who are neither politically streetwise nor know the voodoo of our leaders’ deceits) fathoms their innermost desires, values, tastes and spirit; and thereunto reflect these back to them, making himself a mirror in which they can see themselves and hail him- salvatorem nostram!

The narcissus effect has sundry operative tensile: Calumny, blackmail, blame and guilt transfer, pillories, set-ups, incrimination, etc. Chukwuemeka Chiemerie’s (2012) award winning movie, Broken Affairs, depicts and epitomises in connubial theatre the actual political sitz in leben of Imo State. The husband, Imolites, have through the Narcissus (mirror) effect fallen blindly in faithful love with and in total disbelieve of any possibility of conjugal cheat from his santa mulier (his wife- the Governor). Instead, the third eye that has seen all her infidelity; has observed and analysed the risks on a man’s life when he dines, conjugates and lives with a cheat as wife, a woman that has regular jigs and ladies-killers that cuckold her betrothed spouse. The third eye that has got the temerity to confront the covetous woman, has become the victim and infringer, even as he promised to divulge nothing about her covetousness to his beloved boss and host, not because of hatred or that he enjoys same but in order not to put asunder to what God has joined together. But truth stays for a limited long-while and surges to assault errors and lies. Truth in this case- the real culprit, is like the stolen bunch of banana that a Nembe neighbor stole from the other’s yard, ate and dragged the reefs deep into the waters not to been seen. Even with consistent efforts, the peels surface and float buoy for everyone around to see, ascertain, and trace the provenance and habituation of the real hidden thief. As Charles Dukwe would put it, ‘lies are like pregnancy; they become visible with time’.

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With the Narcissus effect, Governor Okorocha has resorted to calumny, blackmail and guilt-transfer in order to cover up his administrative ineffectiveness and mismanagement of public funds. At his 2013 Budget presentation last month in the Imo State House of Assembly, like the coxswain, he directed his narcissus mirror effects’ strategic calumny to its apex, by making wild allegations of non-performance and looting of public funds against his predecessor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim. In some recent times, the Okorocha-led Government of Imo State has sponsored varied demonstrations that the former Governor, Ikedi Ohakim, be summoned to give account of the “Billions of Naira” meant for the Oguta Wonder Lake project, as well as that for the dredging of the Nworie River. The demonstrators were rented and as hired day-labourers, they appear for the #2,500 day-job and went away. Okorocha’s courting strategy however brings up these day-job stage-workers anytime he wants to do Imo State, “E dey play, e dey show! Whenever he has court cases, public protests against him (like those of the 10,000 Jobs, pensioners, Imo Disabled, or the likes, etc.) or when he wants to sell an uphill-task opinion to the Lawmakers or present budgets (which he knows the conditions the Lawmakers this year, presented to him as conditions for its passage, etc).

As a courtier, Okorocha dragged the Imolites’ attention away from making enquiries on how he implemented the funds and their ascribed budget in 2012. Certainly, he knows that there are some Imolites who are non-residents of his Platonian Allegory of the Cave and renewed Francis Bacon’s Idols of the mind. They certainly will ask after the #13.2 Billion remnant of the bond money meant for the completion of the Oguta Wonder Lake, which has not been completed and the unused money not accounted for since then, and which Okorocha never made any reference to in his #178.64 Billion approved budgets for the 2012 fiscal year nor made any reference to in the present 2013 fiscal year Budget. One of the hired ‘cloth-cover-me’ speakers stupidly remarked- ‘why are these huge amounts of money being mentioned now, in this Rochas’ administration?’ It is obvious that the perfect courtier made his economic team and the day-job employees understand that the higher the budget figures are, (like the two illiterate elders in a village in dispute of eldership I happened to witness last year), the better the State, without considering the availability of fund for the implementation of the budget.

Once in a royal family, two elderly men lived peacefully in their hierarchical seating order, always seating after the eldest kinsman. At the latter’s death, the two closest elders uncertain of their actual seniority-grade, began to struggle for the eldest man’s position. When they were asked to tell the younger kinsmen when they were born, the one that has been subdued as less elderly to the other said he was born in 1928, while the other who claims elderly said he was born in 1929, thinking that since 29 is greater than 28, he is thus the senior. This is comic but a reality in Imo State, a reality that revealed itself in the folly natures of the hired speakers of Governor Okorocha during his recent 2013 Budget presentation in the Imo State House of Assembly, as the Okorocha’s economic team and rented tricycle operators thought that they higher the billions of naira for an annual budget the better life for the people, not knowing that by so doing the rich Courtier courts deeper and enriches himself in the largesse of the funds as he did in the 2012 fiscal year budget and that has just a 17.02 % performance. For them, a State is better run when all its accrued funds are expended, without leaving anything in the coffer in case of unforeseen circumstances, of emergencies (like the flood disasters episode of the last year in Ohaji/Egbema, Oguta LGAs).

Nobody cares also to ask from where the funds will come or their availability; none cares to assess the performance level in the execution and implementation of the 2012 fiscal year budget, which recently, analysts have evaluated from the pages 14-16 of the Governor’s 2013 Budget speech as 47.04% (for Recurrent Revenue) and 26.25% (for Capital Receipts) sub-totalling 37.01% performance; 47.43% (for Recurrent Expenditure) and 4.64% (for Capital Expenditure) subtotalling 17.02% performance. This overall performance- 17.02% of the 2012 fiscal year budget is abysmally low, and shows gross incompetence of the Governor. From the subtotal of the Recurrent Revenue and Capital Receipts in 2012, Governor Okorocha had at his disposal, the whopping sum of #66.13 Billion while he expended only #30.36 Billion, meaning that about #35.77 Billion was not utilised and rests now in the bowels of a glorious crocodile who constantly sheds tears for the people in sympathy for their miseries while it swallows their billions of naira or having them reposed in the bank at zero interest even when innumerable projects await their utilization.

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Governor Okorocha was very apprehensive of the possibility that the vigilant and well-informed Imolites (who know every detail of annual budgets and their implementations, and that they) will certainly inquire about the #35.77 Billion unused fund in last year’s budget, and about the #13.2 Billion bond for Oguta Wonder Lake, etc. These (he was very apprehensive of), as well as the critics and objective demands for explanations thereunto, and must have informed him on the need to initiate a plot and jot-down the poorly-worded and amateur-organised scripts for his theatrical outing in the Imo State House of Assembly to present the 2013 Budget. Perhaps, the Hon Uwajimogu-led Lawmakers either suffer audience (masses) fright or have exaggerated esteem for the masses they represent, such that they forgot that the crowd that came to witness the event were rented to divert the Assembly’s attentions away from certain crucial inquiries about last year’s budget and what remains from its implementations or performance, which is quintessential in rescuing Imo State..

The Master Courtier, Okorocha, smartly answered an unasked question, with the response – Governor Ohakim is the cause. Like students that have habituated their memory retention capacity to route-learning, Rochas and his rented tricycle riders started presenting their stage-managed roles without minding if they are realistic and have objective logical links. Before ever the well-informed Imolites, notably those he considered opponents of his administration, could release their actual rescuing inquiry for co-Imolites, they hired performance artists started pointing accusing fingers on the former Governor, Chief Dr Ikedi Ohakim; implicitly demanding formerly before the Lawmakers that the Ex-Governor be probed. This was meant to let the Lawmakers have the feelings that they are failing the people in their duties, thereby distracting their attentions from actual issues and inquiries at stake. Obviously, Okorocha’s antics of aspersions on Ohakim and the choreographed scripts for the Keke operators were clear indications that Governor Okorocha (as a Master Courtier) wants to divert the people’s attention, and maybe create excuses for the inefficiencies in his government. And like the drunk and the insane in the market place, whose statements are whimsical and unreliable, Okorocha’s administration embarks on displaying gallery of courted and mirrored mentality of the masses; double-tongues and volte-face, which all aims at casting blames on his predecessor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, thus making the blame-game an official State policy.

The truth is that instead of blackmailing Ohakin, Rochas should sum up the courage to probe that erred predecessor! Probe Ohakim, Rochas! He awaits your much touted exposition of corrupt practices in his administration. Rochas is in Douglas House and has seen all the evils of Ohakim, and for two years now have not been able to expose him. Instead, like Adam that the Genesis God asked a geographical question and he gave a biological response; like inscriptions on vehicles and stickers- God is the answer!, one is compelled to ask, to which question? Blame-game is a Courtier’s strategy of diverting responsibility charges and Governor Okorocha, has been found a perfect and master courtier. Ask Robert Green’s 48 Law of Power. Governor Okorocha had #178.64 Billion in 2012 budget and finished with mere 17.02% successful implementation observance. Is it with #195.74 Billion that he can succeed? Christ said that no one who failed in trustworthiness in small things would be entrusted with great things.

Another salient part of the budget is the economic impact it has on the lives of the people. Apart from prestige and aesthetic values, what do the Imo masses benefit from such projects as the First Lady’s new office, the Deputy Governor’s new office, the 1000 capacity Blue Chapel, the Government House Presidential Lodge, the Heroes Square, the World-Class Exco Chambers, the Ultra Modern Banquet Hall, etc? These projects were certainly for the Governor’s personal ego, self-aggrandisement and comfort, and has no soico-economic impact in the lives of the common man Imolite whom he the Master Courtier refers always to as, My people, my people!.

When God asked Adam, “Why did you do this?” He shifted the blame of his disobedience to Eve. Similarly, while Rochas anticipated that the Lawmakers may inquire about the #5.7 Billion he recovered from Ohakim’s contracts, the #13.2 Billion for the Oguta Wonder Lake, the #3.2 Billion got from the sale of Adapalm, the #35.77 Billion that ought to be the remnant of last year’s Recurrent Revenue and Capital Receipts, the un-revealed fund from the sale of Nsu Tiles equipments, the first instalment payment from the concessioned 18 General Hospitals, the 40% upfront payment to contractors for the seven projects estimated at about #70 Billion. (At least, the known capital above sums up to about #57.87 Billion; the 40% upfront estimated at about #70 Billion, would give about #28 Billion, making it #85.87 Billion, excluding the concessioned 18 General Hospitals, the sale of Nsu Tiles equipment, etc). Where is the #85.87 Billion and others un-revealed amount from other sources and sales? Perhaps, Ohakim is the answer! Where are the #100 daily stipends for the Imo students in the Primary and Secondary Schools, – Ohakim is holding it! What economic value and socio-economic impacts do the mega projects of edifices in the Government House last year have on the lives of the general Imolites?- Ohakim must be the ghost behind that machine (Deus ex machina). Why did ndi ntipu uzo open up in cobwebbed manners, innumerable roads in the rural communities and then abandoned them; and their contractors remain ever since then unpaid? – Perhaps, the former Governor Ohakim must be probed to give us the answer! Why even after returning several schools to their private owners, the State still lacks teachers? Ohakim must answer. The drunk in a lodge will say- OHAKIM! Why will students return from school with only one lesson per day while they wear elegant school uniforms and eat snacks of #100 daily? The mad men in a street-loctated Lodge would call OHAKIM! This Imo State’s fallen Adam never dies!

By Prof. Nathan Protus Uzorma (JP)

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