By Steve Osuji
Hell no! This cannot and must not be allowed to pass. For many days after it was announced that Imo State governor, Mr. Hope Uzodinma won the VANGUARD INFRASTRUCTURE GOVERNOR OF THE YEAR, 2024, yours truly has been traumatised.
The first instinct was to pick up my tab and lampoon the utter travesty to my heart’s content.
But the matter is like a fly perched on a delicate place. I couldn’t swipe it with the desired vigor. But then I couldn’t leave it be. Each time I think of it my heart breaks.
And I couldn’t escape the sad spectacle of that misplaced award even if I tried as every political goon in Imo State stepped on the head of another to congratulate their governor, Mr Infrastructure.
The entire media sphere was choked with this very infamy that one could not help but make this intervention – if only to keep my sanity; for our children and posterity.
Vanguard Newspaper is one of the surviving old guards of Nigeria’s print industry. And the Founder and Publisher, Baba Sam Amuka-Pemu (Uncle Sam) is surely the last of the eminence grise of the Nigeria print industry. We are going to be rolling out the drums for Uncle Sam’s 90th in a couple of months.
How do we begin to publicly contend with the living legend of our profession? But I take some solace in the fact that Uncle Sam, in his days, would probably do exactly what I am doing now.
As a columnist under the cognomen of SAD SAM, he was regarded as the most angry man who ever kept a column in Nigeria. He was witty but fierce, caustic and seeming to prefer vitriol to ink.
Uncle Sam taught us umbrage as an art form of writing. His column was our case study in journalism school on, not just how to put the feet of public officials to fire, but how to hold the wayward feet in fire so they can burn a bit. That illustrates how unsparing, if not unforgiving Uncle Sam was in his hay days.
Yours truly therefore, take some liberty in the fact that he would never have done it any other way if he was writing this.
It is indeed, a most difficult piece to write considering that as you write, you see the faces of close friends and colleagues on the stable.
HOPE UZODINMA MOST UNDESERVING OF VANGUARD’S AWARD:
But in the larger interest of the people of Imo and the society at large, this has to be written. It is also in the interest and benefit of the newspaper house to conduct its awards and recognition business with a lot more circumspection, precision and technical acuity.
Vanguard has correspondents in Imo State and the entire southeast. These journalists can give account of all the infrastructure projects in the zone to their fine technical details.
Even the simplest of inquiry or a basic survey would show that the Imo governor is the least deserving of the honour bestowed on him by a national newspaper of Vanguard’s standing.
One’s search everywhere to find the criteria or a list of infrastructure that earned UZODINMA the otherwise prestigious award yielded nothing.
Even the government’s media team that ought to have stood in the gap, showcasing a blitzkrieg of bricks and mortar accomplishments in the last five years, failed in their duty.
There was no such thing. Obviously there isn’t much to show.
HOPE UZODINMA THE UNDERACHIEVER: With only about three years left to go, a keen observer of the Imo governor and government can safely conclude that Governor Hope Uzodinma has already been recorded by history as a poor, under-achieving governor – probably not much better than Rochas Okorocha who did two terms of eight years before him.
In five years, Uzodinma had only three major roads to show. And these are federal roads which have been upgraded to double carriageways but obviously at less than the Federal standards.
And of course, being a staunch member of the ruling APC, he is bound to receive prompt recompense from Abuja.
WHERE’S ALL IMO STATE MONEY GONE? Some day soon, Imo people will demand from Uzodinma: where all the federal allocations to State and LGAs have gone?
All the state and rural roads are in disrepair and this shall be apparent as the rains set in soon.
Schools, rural hospitals and most state infrastructure are in ruins across Imo State.
Local councils in Imo are completely abandoned as they are stripped of all federal allocations accruing to them monthly by the governor. Most of them are overgrown by bush with not a single project accomplished in five years.
Those started by Emeka Ihedioha, Uzodinma’s immediate predecessor were all abandoned.
This is why it’s so hurtful that Vanguard Newspaper is rewarding Uzodinma’s mediocrity not to mention brigandage.
HOW TO KILL A SOCIETY: It never augurs well for a society that is led by crass pecuniary instincts. It’s true that the times are hard and running a business in Nigeria today is a daunting Sisyphean task.
Nevertheless, we must be mindful not to throw away the society with the bath water, so to speak. We must not completely let down our guards; we must be careful not to eternally damage our souls to keep the sheen on our body.
This column had had cause in the past to openly condemn the Vanguard for naming then Kaduna State governor, Nasir el RUFAI, Governor Of The Year (2019 and 2021) in the midst of massive genocide-like killings in southern Kaduna … Yet again, Vanguard crosses the red line yet again!
POLITICAL DESECRATION: In five years under Uzodinma, Imo, the verdant Heartland of the East has become nigh a wasteland… in every sector and in every respect.
An absentee governor who’s hardly in town, there’s very little going on in terms of real governance.
Half of the state is probably a swathe of unmanned territory occupied by all manner of non-state militias and criminals. This means a self-inflicted state of insecurity.
No jobs, no industries, no investors, unless those coming in through the backdoor.
Uzodinma has succeeded in worsting political opposition, downgrading Imo to a one-party state.
A further destruction of a society is to see men of stature reduced to crouching animals scrambling for crumbs under the oppressor’s dining table.
A particular congratulatory advert by one of the best political minds of the Owerri zone made yours truly shed a tear.
Barrister Willy Amadi was a rising political star of his people nearly twenty years ago. Today, he is a favour seeking nonentity grovelling before Emperor Uzodinma, engaging in demeaning felicitations to catch the governor’s attention.
Willy Amadi is of course, presented here as the veritable symbol of a debased political class: deranged, de-souled and castrated; trampling upon themselves to support a dubious award.
They know too well there’s hardly much infrastructure over five years compared to Abia and Enugu over two years. They know it has taken five years to repair one hotel built from start to finish by Sam Mbakwe in less than four years.
Finally, in honouring public officials, Vanguard Newspapers (and all other award- giving bodies) must spare a thought for the overall wellbeing of the people and society it is set up to uphold and edify in the first place.
We understand that we have to do extraordinary things to stay afloat under the APC dispensation, but let’s step back a bit and ask the critical question: is the honoured honourable?
The Vanguard award to Gov. Uzodinma is searing to the psyche of right-thinking Imo people in particular and members of the society in general.
