I am wired to be curious and interested in feedbacks. After the recent gatherings in selected places in Abia State, I have read statements and comments from the organisers and supporters of the ceremonies, alleging that their events had provoked fear and anxiety and caused jitters within government quarters. They deconstruct the government response to the gatherings, mostly a concern for public order, as uneasiness, apprehension and being jittery.
But, I dare to ask: Who is actually jittery? We were told that the former actors of power have moved on and pursuing their private endeavours. I have read statements accusing Governor Alex Otti of being bitter with the former actors and exhibiting open hatred against them. I have read statements alleging that the governor had spent his two years in office fighting his predecessor and faulting the deeds of the former administration. I have encountered heated debates profiling Otti as an agent of vendetta. These accusers have been charitable enough to advise the governor to ‘face governance, focus on his own programmes and leave the former actors alone’.
Yet, all the speeches at the gatherings were about the actions and inactions of the governor. All the speeches were innuendoes about his excesses, his denials of what he met on ground and his appropriations of victory and glory for all projects without giving credit to the former actors of power. Who is actually afraid when all speeches were invectives against an imaginary Messiah claimed by Otti. Have they really moved on and yet they cannot emerge from the fear of being haunted by their past? When a supposedly Committee of Aides assembly turned out to be a political instigating outreach where votes were canvassed with such statements as “deliver your booth and leave the rest for us”, is it not a clear statement about a people grappling with a certain form of phobia?
Who is actually afraid when there was no independent agenda or points of discussion and all speeches centered on accusations against Otti not recognising that government is a continuity, and merely completing what had already been started by the former actors of power? When you convene a gathering without an agenda and only end up hauling stones on another, then I ask: Who is afraid?
Ironically, instead of focusing on their own future, instead of having an agenda at hand, all discussions at the meeting centered on Otti and his government. All the discussions punctured the alleged claims of the governor. So, I ask again: Who is jittery and afraid in Abia? Is it not those who, after two years, cannot come over the shock of their defeat? Is it not those who packaged an escapist comedy to make the statement: ‘We are here after all; we are not dead’? How else can we interpret the disguised arrogant posturing other than the gimmicks of those who are afraid of their shadow?
I once read a book entitled, The Guilty is Afraid.
Adindu writes from Umuahia, Abia State capital
