On Tuesday, October 22, 2013, women numbering hundreds from all over Imo State arrived Owerri in hired buses and hit the streets of the state capital carrying placards with many and varied inscriptions some of which read: ‘Federal Government leave Okorocha alone’, ‘EFCC leavel Okorocha alone, ‘ICPC leave Imo Alone’ and so on.

Journalists from both print and electronic media fell over themselves to get interviews and make stories of the ‘protest’.

My information is that the women were protesting what they regard as “indiscriminate arrests of Imo State government officials by anti-graft agencies”. In a country where everybody, from the market woman to the human rights activist is an apostle of anti-corruption and observance of the rule of law, such a stance by women who ultimately bear the brunt of misappropriation is rather surprising.

Government officials in the state (including the governor) may well be impeccably prudent in the performance of their functions and management of the state’s resources but the anti-graft agencies have the responsibility to monitor their official activities like those of officials of other states to ensure that the resources of the state are not being mindlessly frittered away. I imagine that the same thing is being done in other states and indeed at the national level.

The general perception, especially by informed political watchers is that those women were rented by government to create the erroneous impression that the governor is being witch-hunted by the Federal Government through the anti-graft agencies.

One is inclined to believe this reasoning, especially since crowd-renting seems to be the stock-in-trade of politicians and governments in these parts. If this is true, and I imagine it is, then there may be no end to trickery and deceit in governance. A government that has no skeletion in its cupboard has no reason to be jittery or to panic when its activities are being investigated.

It will indeed keep its doors wide open for the investigators to enter and do their job. So whether or not the investigation is sponsored is immaterial.     That said, the anti-graft agencies should indeed leave Okorocha and his government alone if they discover that government records are straight and the scarce resources of the state are being judiciously husbanded.

Enough about the women “protesters”. The next day October 23, Owerri the state capital again came to a stand still. Reason. Disabled persons in the state took to the streets to protest their ill-treatment by the Okorocha administration. Antithesis.

There was traffic gridlock. Regrettably, the disabled belong to the class of people whom Governor Okorocha has always beat his chest as taking care of their needs. About this same time last year, they also took to the streets for the same reasons. The logical implication is that since then they have either been given inadequate attention or no attention at all.

If the truth must be told (as it ought to), Imo State is currently experiencing a phenomenal economic downturn in the hands of the present administration. Money is not changing hands by way of contracts to Imolites except between and among the privileged few; unemployment level is high and graduate youths are given false hopes of employment which never materialises. Granted that some effort was made to put up infrastructure by way of roads and buildings but most of the roads opened up were never started and those started were abandoned.

Buildings put up all over the state capital were built without pre-determined purposes. This much was re-echoed by no less a personality than the Anglican Bishop emeritus of Mbaise Diocese, Rt. Rev, Bright Ogu when he described the Okorocha administration as “a disappointment to the people of Imo State”.

Bishop Ogu who reportedly made the comment during the second synod of the diocese of Ikeduru recently, was also quoted in the 247UREPORTS internet news as saying, among other things: “We’re seeing things happening – breaking down people’s buildings, breaking down people’s comfort and traditions; taking people’s land everywhere and building structures that cannot be finished.

This cannot be leadership”. According to the report, the bishop also said that the Governor was running the state as a one-man business, accusing him of not carrying the people of the state, including members of the State House of Assembly, along. He also condemned what he called “Governor Okorocha’s policy of stifling the state’s economy by not giving jobs to the youths”.

Bishop Ogu’s assessment of the Okorocha administration seems to be in tandem with the views often expressed by political analysts that a deliberate state of hunger has been created in Imo by the present administration through its superficial and seemingly people-oriented programmes. Such programmes, they claim, have been deliberately designed to put the people in so much want that they will jump with gratitude, at any handouts given to them during elections, to the government’s advantage.

Some of the women who were cornered during the so-called pro-Okorocha protests did not even know why they were packed in buses and brought to Owerri until they got there. They were simply given some money and told to join the buses to Owerri.

If this is true (and it must be since the women themselves said so), then poverty is truly taking its toll on the people and this state of affairs is beginning to be employed by government for the intended purpose. But paradoxically, the purpose was most definitely reasonably thwarted the next day by the disabled protesters who, unlike the women, were obviously not rented by anybody but came out on their own volition to register their disenchantment with a state of affairs which they considered unacceptable.

Governments, whether federal, state or local must learn to operate in the interest of the people who put them in place. Government functionaries must always be open to and frank with the people so as to earn their trust.

Simulated support never gets anywhere and real support comes from genuine policies and programmes that positively touch on the lives of the electorate. It also comes from selflessness and transparency in governance. If the Okorocha government in Imo State is being run in keeping with these leadership ethos, then there is no reason to be afraid of anti-graft agencies.