Telling lies and governance ought to be two parallel lines. They should never meet. But for the Anambra State government House Awka this is not the story. Lying is a pass time. They stand truth in the head. They paint white black with lies. They relish it. They eat it, drink it and breath it. And if that is not enough they kiss lies .In that kiss opposite terms do not attract; like terms do. Men and men kiss to deceive.
Lying apparently has a department in the government. The only thing is that the House of Assembly has not approved a commissioner to head a Ministry of Asi Ocha.
‘I will fight insecurity with creation of jobs’ Where are the created jobs? Even staff of Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS)-a parastatal of Anambra State department of lies has 150 staff who earned their last salary in February. ‘I will not use siren’ Okwu! Now the governor does not use siren, he uses a fleet of cars with a piercing noise in the air. ‘Only nineteen died in Amansea’ Aju! ‘We did not order the burial of the corpses’ fiooooo! I will resign any time I am unable to pay salaries .Mbe aga ba! Ga ga ga ga!! Health Workers, Judicial workers, local government workers are full of tales of woes. Of course Joe Martin Uzodike, Commissioner for Information and Culture is telling other lies for the state government and for his party.
‘There are two parallel court of Appeal judgements for APGA ‘Uzodike announced recently. Anambra people have burst that lie. There is only one Court of Appeal judgement on APGA matter-the one that restored Umeh National Chairman.
The other one was a kangaroo matter appeal filed by an Onitsha based senior lawyer who selected both the plaintiffs and defendants for a judicial drama that started before another Onitsha judge in Awka, related to a foremost member of the Onitsha traditional institution in whose house Henry Obaze was hand-picked on February 1, 2013. Onitsha is in Anambra North Senatorial Zone.
That matter was cleverly withdrawn in the first week of last month-two weeks before the Umeh’s restoration judgement, when it was not referred to the particular panel of judges the oga-at –the top wanted.
But these are light lies compared to the recently discovered double lies by both Governor Peter Obi and the Secretary to his government, Mr Henry Obaze.
Read Obi: ‘’The latest callous act, in which Lagos State did not even bother to consult with Anambra State Authorities before deporting 72 persons conspired to be of Igbo extraction to Anambra State is illegal unconstitutional and a blatant violation of the human rights of these individuals and the Nigerian Constitution’’ Obi wrote, asking that the event should be investigated and the Lagos State government should be censured’’
Governor Obi reportedly wrote these lines to President Goodluck Jonathan, reporting the Lagos State Government for bringing in Anambra Citizens to dump in Onitsha. But even the mere idea of haven written the president may be a lie for all you care. The only place you can find this is in online media, posted by Obi’s aides. Anyone who could lie with the name of the Court of Appeal will not spare the name of the president. How are we sure that it is not all about grandstanding? Those letters may not have left Obi’s office at all. But maybe they did. In any case we cannot be sure. We have seen things. It is election time and as one lie bursts another is hoisted. Are we sill talking about the N20 million Anambra State money which Hon Sylva Nwobu-Alor confessed was given to Umeh every month to run a party? By the way where is Nwobu Alor? Retired? Now, battle over, another stranger is here is APGA, courtesy Umeh. He says: ‘I have taken to APGA because, unlike the PDP, APGA has no zoning its constitution’. She e ge Sa- ludo!! Teach Obi the constitution of APGA. He has had a copy for ten years though. But be sure to keep the spirit of that public kiss between African men of Igbo extraction claiming Igbo- party-hood. At least now the falcon can hear the falconer-apologies to W B Yeats -so the new deal of parody must be sealed with a homosexual kiss on the stage. A kiss from a man to a man. Lies! A kiss from a deft manoeuvrer, cum system worm to a hard fighter that loves himself and deals when the price is right.
Will the dealer deal through this one? Obaze may like to say no. But now Obaze too is telling white lies. I thought he was trained in America and in strong Christian institutions. I thought he was the Secretary to the State Government. I thought he worked in the United Nations, even though we do t know, whether as a janitor.
‘’The most vexatious aspect of this act is that the Lagos State authorities did not consult with its Anambra State counterpart, or with its Liaison Office in Lagos, assuming that its intentions were authentic’’ Obaze wrote in an article published in an online forum, mainly to draw attention to his ambition, because the article was published on the same day he submitted a written document to express interest in the governorship ticket of APGA ,ironically to Victor Umeh’s National Secretariat of APGA. It was the same Umeh he pilloried on television during the abaidiegwu (Night is ominous) convention in Awka.
Is Obaze an outsider in the government in spite of all the media protestations Letters written by Anambra State government are already in circulation on the street of Lagos, Abuja, and Kaura Namoda and in Eke Awka and the SGF says his government was not consulted? Now he is the one causing vexation.
No! He cannot say he does not know. He stepped out to ride on the back of lies to Anambra State consciousness. It would be too much of a coincidence that the choking ,jaw-breaking combination of ‘Hubris, Brigandage and Scofflaw’ hit the internet on the same day Obaze jumped into the murky fray of Anambra gubernatorial race like a chicken on a strange terrain ,which must stand on one foot.
So Obaze’s first outing in the gubernatorial race is a lie? Alu melu! Lagos State government beat them hollow on this one. They supplied them the names and asked them to come and check. But Obaze is not bothered about that. He wants to grandstand. They agreed to exchange the citizens in Onicha, and Obaze’s boys had travelled to Abuja with nomination forms. I wish it was a VIP burial ceremony, which he can order journalist around, just for burial brochure.
Now rather than the truth, Obaze is assisting his boss to lie. Rather than apologise to Anambra that the citizens of the state were stuck somewhere and no one in government cared. Not even Obaze or Obi. And in case Obaze being a stranger did not know this, his younger brother, an ex-convict who escaped justice in America using his elder diplomat brother as cover would background him that when riots broke out in Bauchi State after 2012 elections and Corp members Anambra State origin were endangered, no one also cared to evacuate them. They fought their way into Imo State buses squatting all the way to Onitsha and rode on the back of a trailer carrying banana to Funtua,which dropped them dirty and unkempt at Government House,Awka. And when the governor managed to see them only after two days, he asked them to write their names and come back on another day for an appointment that never held.
When markets were shut down in Lagos and Anambra State citizens were affected this state government did not as much as open a diplomatic channel with the Lagos government. They went to the media to grandstand. Now the approach is the same. When Chinua Achebe asked for a hospital in Anambra State that could contain facilities for the crippled to enable him resettle in Anambra State, Peter Obi’s government dodged. When he died they came to were clothes with his photo and do fanfare. When Dr. Chudi Nwike, ex-deputy governor of the state was kidnapped, Obi and Obaze docked. They he was murdered they kept mum till one week after and later denied him burial responsibilities of the government he served. So the lack of care extended to Anambra citizens brought in from Lagos is not isolated. Last year it also happened. But the government would rather dash money to the federal army and the army of pretenders in political circles and the pulpit, but fail to care to those they should.
These two-Obi and Obaze-certainly have more than their alma mater tying them together. They do things the same way. As now proven, they lie together-not as homosexuals don’t get me wrong. The famous kiss was between Obi and Umeh, not Obaze.They grandstand together. They have common and uncommon ties to Dubem Obaze the custodian of local government funds for most of Obi’s years as governor, and the Destroyer General of Town Union administrations in Anambra State. Little wonder Obi wants Obaze to succeed him.
Rather than acknowledge that they have not cared for whom they should-the lowly in society- they are turning indefensible defence into November 16, attack. Akwa Ibom State picked up their people when contacted, like Anambra State was. Anambra State government top notchers docked. Now they build walls with lies. Lies that have an expiry date? It has an That date is gone! Obi is going into his professed retirement-whether is it true or not, give him the benefit of doubt-with Henry Oseloka Obaze, our lying SGF. Fa assiaaa!