Opinion: Former Abia Finance Commissioner, Obinna Oriaku and the Notorious Ways of a Fake Critic. (Part 1) – Ferdinand Ekeoma

In the last few months, a former Commisisoner for Finance in the immediate past PDP led-government, Mr. Obinna Oriaku has made an audacious attempt to present himself as a new creature who desires to see good governance in Abia State, after his destructive disservice to the state when he held sway as a powerful Commisisoner for Finance.

In line with our philosophy, we believe that Obinna Oriaku, like every other citizen reserves the right to ask questions, criticise the government and make demands for good governance, therefore I personally observed his interventions in the media, hoping that he would comport himself with dignity and stay within acceptable rules of democratic engagements, especially, given his inglorious roles that brought Abia economy to the state of quagmire Governor Alex Otti met it.

Sadly, Mr. Oriaku after several months of macabre dance, window dressing and deceitful disposition that has failed woefully to convince Abians that he has good intentions, has finally unmasked himself as a lame thinker, a mischief rabble rouser, and a fake critic who is embittered that after years of chicanery and ignominy in governance, a Governor courageously chosen by the people has buried their atrocious record of mediocrity with a nationally acclaimed steller performance in one year, hence his decision to resort to insults, concoctions and misleading mumbo-jumbo geared towards smearing the image and reputation of the Governor. I sincerely thank him for finally removing the apparel of deceit and unmasking himself to be properly identified and confronted.

Reacting to the alleged claim that Governor Otti was demolishing the Abuja Governor’s Lodge” and to a statement by the Governor that he will “pull down dilapidated building structures in the present Government House and erect modern building structures that are befitting”, Our Oriaku that ruined us had this to say about the Governor:

“Believe Nigerian false Prophets and Prophetesses at your peril. Fears are rife that Abia’ s Governor Alex Otti may have ‘entered ”one chance”, especially by his brazen determination to demolish the iconic Abia Governor’s lodge in Abuja and the Government House in Umuahia. I understand Aba lodge is also not spared while we pray Lagos lodge, opposite Bar beach Victoria Island is not sold to a crony.

Those that believe in what marabouts from Arab or what Prophet and Prophetesses say are quick to run into avoidable mess.

Indeed Politics exposes many to array of suspicion and circumspection but not to the extent of inculcating deep seated fears and resort to uncanny voodoo solutions that negate modest practical christian tenets. Also given that the Governor’s father was widely attested to have lived as a pious Adventist clergy, one would have exonerated Governor Otti as one of those politicians that could easily fall for regular spiritual manipulation by the end time prophetic signs and wonders Pastors.
As ludicrous as that may sound, one may ask if Umuehim Nvosi is spiritually immune from attacks than the Government house ?

The Governor’s action is so provoking. Recall, he hurriedly sacked thousands of Abia workers because he either felt that the wage bill was humongous or they were employed by his foes.
If all these speculations are true, then, I will consider such wasteful ventures as a pitiably desperate and hallucinatory display of primitive ignorance .
His self inflicted fear of death and his conflicted belief in many gods should not be the problem of Abians.Ya gbara ogwu ya ñuo!”

From the irresponsible statement made above by the embittered Oriaku, he dwelled on three issues. Abuja Lodge, Government House Umuahia and alleged sack of workers.

First, the Abuja Governor’s Lodge was never demolished and is not being demolished. What the government did for safety and space reasons was to demolish wrongly built structures that were not part of the original masterplan of the building and which did not have the structural rigidity to stand the test of time as the building gets older. Which primitive thinking would make someone to begin to attack a government because it’s carrying out a renovation work in a building that belongs to it? Why was the Governor not condemned for reconstructing and retrofitting many buildings like Emeka Omerua Government Lodge, Banquet Hall, Appointees Political Block, Deputy Governor’s Office Building, Planning Commission, New Workers Secretariat, Old Workers Secretariat, JAAC Building, Hospital buildings etc?

As a cunning character who wants to make primitive political capital for himself through mischief and blackmail, Oriaku intentionally refused to show a video or picture that captured the entire massive building. I challenge Mr. Oriaku to show us a video or picture that captures the entire building.

On Governnment House Umuahia. It’s sad and insulting that Mr. Oriaku has the effrontery to speak even after allegedly being one of the arrow heads that superintended over the diversion of billions of naira in the construction of the so-called Government House which they could not stay in even for one day.

For the records, Governor Alex Otti led-government has carried out massive renovation and retrofitting work in the Government House which include the following structures; Emeka Omerua Government Lodge Umuahia, Banquet Hall Government House, Appointees Political Block, Presidential Lodge Government House, Deputy Governor’s office building. The SSG’S office building was recently demolished for reconstruction.

The Governor has held countless events at the Banquet Hall, and also holds church service there whenever he is not a guest of any external church. The Governor meets and holds meetings with guests at the Emeka Omerua Government Lodge and the Presidentail Lodge Government House respectively. So how does planned further demolition and reconstruction geared towards building befitting office structures and creating the enabling environment for government operations amount to the Governor listening, believing and patronising Marabouts and Voodoo Doctors? Why would Oriaku use his character and person as a yardstick to drive a destructive narrative against the Governor? Obinna Oriaku may need to tell his audience if Otti took him to any shrine or subjected him to oath taking before employing him in First Bank?

It’s now very clear that Mr. Oriaku is a little-mind rabble rouser who ignorantly thinks that the fetish practices they allegedly applied to hoodwink his former Oga and frittered public funds away and became billionaires overnight, are what is being done in the present government.

On alleged sack of workers, once again, Mr. Oriaku brought his hypocrisy to bear by refusing to stand by the truth he attempted to speak in the past when it suited his selfish interest. Below were the explicit statements made by Mr. Oriaku during and after his tenure as Commissioner for Finance and I’m quoting him verbatim:

“We had to deal with the issue of fraudulent employment of workers without waiver, a small committee was set to review those employed without waiver over 800 illegal workers were discovered.

When the salary committee was invited by EFCC office in Port Harcourt, payroll officers inserted the 61 names into the State payroll and two months later, they were discovered and removed which cost the State about Fifteen Million naira (#15m)

Where things are done well, the pay roll officers should have been sanctioned and made to bear the punishment of how we lost Fifteen Million naira (#15m) to non-existing civil servants, so these are the issues we met and the processes that led to where we are today” -Obinna Oriaku.

“As it affects salaries and pensions, I must state that the issue of salary payment is very fundamental and that is where I lost it with the civil servants and people who refuse to reason with it. You cannot eat your cake and have it. You cannot have an overbloated workforce, employ everybody in your village because your brother is the Governor. You are earning far than what you should earn. I did an analysis of our total receipt in 45 months and outside the intervention of the Paris Refund, the State got about one hundred and fifty six billion naira (#156 billion) and about One Hundred Billion (#100 billion) was used for salaries, emoluments and pensions, the other Fifty Six Billion Naira (#56 billion) was used for overhead and capital projects, the implication is that Abia State exist just to pay salaries this has to change if the State is to move forward”-Obinna Oriaku

“A situation where every year people are being promoted, the civil servants are excited about it but they forget that they are also going to wait for the repercussion, imagine every one leaves together at level 16, it will have an effect on the pension and it becomes difficult to pay, I’m sure their pension is hitting Five Hundred Million naira (500m) monthly and It beats me how these payments will be made regular with poor monthly allocation and I wonder which government will pass out such value with the meager allocation we are getting. So these are the reasons I made enemies because I said we must address these issues if we are going to tell ourselves the truth”-Obinna Oriaku.

I published the above three quotes only to establish without doubt that Mr. Oriaku is a hypocrite who has chosen to defend the wrongs he had condemned in the past just because he desperately and dishonestly wants to paint Governor Otti as an enemy of Abia workers even when he knows that what the Governor Otti did was the right thing to do.
Before the so-called employment which was recklessly and unjustly carried out, the same government was already owing several months of accumulated salary arrears incured by it. The government claimed it was unable to pay salaries because the state had overbloated workforce. Wasn’t that a criminal contradiction?

The government did not create any job opportunities and did not have verifiable vacancies with known job descriptions for those they claimed to have employed.
What the Ikpeazu led-government did was pure wickedness because it was selfishly done for the purposes of luring unsuspecting citizens to support their candidates ahead of the 2023 General elections, and after thier loss they employed more to lay a trap for the present government. That was why the PDP’S campaign slogan was “If he wins, he will sack you”. They knew that what they did was terrible and atrocious and should not have been done.
Saturating the civil service with workers you have not created jobs that you would want them to do to enable good governance and productivity, and refusing to pay those you employed is an irresponsible act that shouldn’t be associated with any government institution.
Governor Alex Otti is under obligation to take far reaching actions and decisions that would help revive the state which was in a state of comatose for years, and in doing so, it’s natural that the beneficiaries of the skewed system would be hurt in one way or another, but at the appropriate time, the Governor’s actions and decisions would receive the deserved accolades from discerning and honest Abians.

Ferdinand Ekeoma
Special Adviser to Governor Alex Otti
Writes from Umuahia
July 31st, 2024.