By Obi Nwakanma
The fascist governor of Abia State last week caused to be made clear and unambiguous, through reports published in Nigerian newspapers, that the Abia State government under his administration will not back down or rescind the order to sack three thousand so-called “non-indigenes” from the Abia State civil service.

Abia State has gone forth to carry out this extremely illegal and provocative act on the orders of its governor, irrespective of pleas by well-meaning and public spirited people, including religious and civic leaders, who have in vain, it now seems, tried to dissuade the governor and the Abia administration from this perfidious path.

We in this column had alerted the public about the injustice of this decision and its potential illegality. I’d confess that I personally did not expect Governor Orji to relent. The surprise would have been that he suddenly woke up on his way to this Damascus. Governor Orji  has proved himself far too limited and narrow-minded in his perspective that it is very surprising indeed how he made it through the administrative cadre of the civil service and then on to governor. Perhaps one should rather say that it is not surprising that he made it through what became the Nigerian civil service given what became of it with the like of T.A. Orji in policy-making positions.

What is clear is that as a policy issue T.A. Orji has goofed big time with this non-indigene palaver! Orji has proved himself incapable of statesmanship. He acts in this case, no better than the classic “bumpkin from Bende,” to quote K.O. Mbadiwe in a different era. In response to pleas and criticisms about this wrong-headed policy, the Abia state government embarked on a flurry of media campaigns, most of which were written in extremely surreal language to attack critics rather than do the right thing.

One such media campaign signed by a middling aide to Governor T.A Orji who went by the name “Eze Chikamnayo,” written in the worst possible English,   made it quite clear to me why the Abia State government is not working; why it is busy sacking non-indigenes rather than embark in bold, thoughtful, innovative, and life changing programs that would lift Abia from crassness and poverty. It became clear why a great city like Aba, under this administration has become the true face of urban dystopia. If an adviser of “Media and Strategy” to the governor cannot express himself well enough in English, the official language of the state, there’s clearly very little thinking going on in the Umuahia government house. It was frivolous and circuitous, indeed a waste of Abia tax payers money for the Abia state governor to authorize his aide to take out an entire page in Thisday to ventilate and spew irrelevant and rancorous howlers against the critics of the Abia State government on this matter of sacking “non-indigenes.” The outrage is only just building up, and it is important that Nigerians understand that the Abia State governor has no right and no constitutional authority to order, authorize or cause the sacking of employees in the civil service on grounds other than those stipulated under the Civil Service Act.

As a former civil servant, Mr. T.A. Orji ought to know this. The use of politics as the grounds for terminating the job of a lawfully employed citizen in the service of the state amounts to a serious abuse of power and process, and ought in fact to earn the Abia state governor a censor both by the courts and by the Abia State legislature.

We make this point repeatedly to remind Nigerians, particularly the so-called ‘ordinary citizen’ that there is such a thing as the rule of law; that the Abia State governor swore to govern under the rule of law and upholdthe constitution of the Federal Republic.

In giving this order, T.A. Orji circumvents the rule of law, and the authority of the civil service, particularly the English model which Nigeria inherited and adopted, which makes the civil service neutral and independentof political actors. Civil servants are employees of the state and are recruited through the Civil Service Commission which regulates and sanctions such state employees. It is mindless abuse of power to deny a worker who has put in many years in the service of Abia state the right not only to his wage, but also to his pension, and to the benefits of his tax, and the mandatory provident withdrawals made over the years from his pay slip by the Abia state government simply by calling him “non-indigene.” It amounts to criminal dispossession. It is heartwarming that the Aba branch of the Nigerian Bar association has condemned the move by the Abia state government and has pledged to represent the affected workers pro bono. I think it should go further.

The Civil Rights Committee of the NBA should organize and sue the Abia State government and Governor T.A. Orji jointly, on behalf of these workers, and if it is necessary take this case to the Supreme Court. It should provide precedence in settling this citizen/indigene binary across Nigeria. This could be a real test case. On a different note, it is important that the affected workers do not carry placards to anywhere else but must organize and be prepared to sustain the occupation of the Abia State governor’s office in protest. That’s what aggrieved citizens do; they do not run; they fight for their rights.

These workers should learn something from the “Occupy Wall Street” movement taking shape right now in the United States, and rouse sympathetic public participation. They should take their blankets and camp outside Government House in Umuahia.

The Catholic Church under Bishop Ugorji, and other religious and civic bodies must help mobilize this movement to “occupy Umuahia” until T.A. Orji yields. Indeed, the Igbo in general should boycott T.A. Orji – do not let him speak, eat, sit, break kola, or be part of any self-respecting Igbo congregation.

Wherever he appears, self-respecting Igbo should get up and walk away, until he rescinds this unjust policy. Abians on their own have a higher moral obligation to call their governor to order and force him to recant this egregious policy, or otherwise bear the  heavy burden of scurrilous and intolerant acts themselves by scurrilous and intolerant men elsewhere, long after T.A. Orji has ceased to be governor.