By Chuks Iloegbunam

Two! I had carefully read the farcical online report that Governor Obiano had, in two years, blown the fabulous N75 billion “abandoned” in Anambra’s vaults by his predecessor. It was a disgraceful washout; it contained not a single word, let alone a single sentence, to support the wild claim of its title. It merely listed what the author termed 29 Anambra State Government accounts in various banks, and posted the sum of N37.3 billion as the total funds in them on the morning of Chief Obiano’s inauguration.

That was all. Yet, the story’s headline claimed that N75 billion had been embezzled, and blamed a Governor for the crime. But there was no scintilla of proof to support the allegation. Yet, an ostensibly reputable online publication went to town with it! Yet again, people, including the educated, believed the appalling provocation. Was there any justifiable reason to malign the innocent and impugn their integrity?

Now, this phantom story of embezzled billions requires to be further discredited. The basic thing to note here is the distinction between  Wealthand  Cash. If a man left his son an estate of N20 billion made up of N15 billion in properties and N5 billion in cash, the money in the son’s possession is N5 billion, period. If the son hasn’t sold any of the property, it becomes fallacious to claim he has blown any of the N15 billion in property.

No one has ever accused Governor Obiano of liquidating state bonds or treasury bills. No one has ever accused his government of auctioning inherited assets like the Agulu Lake Hotel, and the shopping mall and brewery in Onitsha. But Chief Obiano’s administration has continued to service inherited liabilities, including subsisting contractors’ certificates and a large workforce introduced on the eve of the inception of the present dispensation and whose first emoluments fell due under Chief Obiano’s watch. The administration has continued with road construction. It has kept up with the payment of salaries and pensions. It has kept the wheels of government turning rhythmically. Yet the cranks’ phantom 75 billion is, by some magic, expected to be incapable of depletion!

On the agitation for Biafra, I prefaced Governor Obiano’s refutation of the accusation with my personal experience. Of Igbo writers and commentators, whether inside or outside the country, hardly any has contributed more to the media interrogation of the explosive subject than my humble self. Any perusal of Internet search engines would instantaneously throw up my incessant and consistent expression of outrage against heavy-handedness on peaceful and non-violent demonstrators.
That said, I relayed Chief Obiano’s refutation of the specific accusation against him.

This came from the Governor’s interactive session with 26 Lagos-based journalists on Monday July, 11, 2016, two days after he received the 2016 Zik Award for Leadership. It was Emma Onyejena, most recently of  Thisday’s  editorial board but now of the online publication  All News and Reports, who had asked the Governor to explain himself in the light of allegations that he had ordered Army troops and Police cadres to expend live rounds on IPOB agitators.Responding, the Governor made it clear that he had never thought of, let alone ordered the shooting of anyone. He didn’t have a reason to direct the taking of human life.

Besides, he lacked the constitutional powers to issue shoot-to-kill orders, or any orders for that matter, to commanders of military and paramilitary formations that were all Federal establishments. That prerogative belonged solely to the President and Commander-in-Chief.
Governor Obiano described the allegation as “false and ridiculous”, recalling that in January of 2015, he had organized  Ozoemezina  (May it never happen again) – a memorial for all Igbo sons and daughters that perished during the civil war. Voices from all over had opposed him then, claiming that he was trying to “open old wounds”!

No other South East governor had joined the exercise. But he persisted and went ahead with it, as a way of bringing closure to the most difficult chapter in Igbo history. How, then, could he have conceived or ordered an increment in the numbers of Igbo casualties?
After these explanations, my friend conceded that Governor Obiano was clear of the charges against him. But, he couldn’t place a finger on any achievements under Obiano’s watch! Hadn’t he heard that, thanks to Obiano, Anambra is today the safest state in Nigeria? I asked. “Except that!” he replied. Was it news to him that, whereas most states in the country were sweating under the backlog of salary arrears, Anambra sustains a regime of prompt payment of salaries and pensions? “Except that too.”

What about Anambra’s giant strides in agriculture? While a bag of rice currently sells at more than the national minimum wage, the Anambra State Government is encouraging the mass production of food crops, including rice, for sale at substantially lower prices. Was it not public knowledge that Obiano’s administration had attracted agriculture-related investments to the tune of billions of Naira? “Well, except that too!”

My friend was gradually burying himself in a ridiculous deluge of exceptions. But he had one last puny punch to throw. He bemoaned Anambra’s “impassable” roads. Laughing at his ignorance, I pointed out that the state boasted the best network of roads in the country. I told him that the deplorable Enugu-Onitsha expressway was a Federal project. I told him that there were other such Federal roads crying for rehabilitation in the state.

It was public knowledge that Power, Works and Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola, recently visited Anambra State, promising that, once the heavy rains abated, the Federal Government would start the rehabilitation of its bad roads in the state. That was besides the Federal Government’s acknowledgement of it N43.8 billion indebtedness to Anambra for Federal roads fixed by the state.

I made a promise myself, to the effect that, from the rainless prelude to Christmas, Anambra’s primed road construction and maintenance machinery would comprehensively attend to what state roads were in need of attention.

My friend was unaware of the fact that the Obiano administration recently gave N20 million to each of the 199 communities in the State for attending to any projects specific to their interests. That’s a disbursement of some N4 billion, a national precedent! Yet, naysayers call Anambra bankrupt…

My friend went into mortified silence. But I added the coup de grâce by suggesting that he summoned the courage to visit Nigeria, instead of abiding the incessant manipulation of his emotions by pirate bloggers and journalistic hirelings.

It is ironic that the most achieving Governor in the South East geopolitical zone is today the most calumniated and vilified. It speaks to the consternation of serious-minded observers that three of the Internet bloggers responsible for the preponderance of the anti-Obiano fabrications are from Enugu State. They neither reside in Anambra nor pay taxes in the state, these miserable blokes that have never commented on any issue in their home state, including the activities of murderous herdsmen. It underscores the gullibility of human nature that easily detectable fallacious lumps against Obiano are readily masticated and swallowed hook, line and sinker by folks educationally equipped to know better.

I have scrutinized the mindset of the manufacturers of falsehood against Governor Obiano. This is their game: claiming to have benefitted from ancient and modern history, they insist that mountains of anti-Obiano falsehoods will obliterate the Governor’s political future, and make Anambra’s seat of power available for their seizure. Jesus Christ, they argue, was  lied  against, and he consequently had, even in his innocence, been crucified. The same vile propaganda, they maintain, had been employed against President Jonathan – and witness where the man ended up. Therefore, these liars believe that fabrications skyscraper-tall will force Chief Obiano from office.

Predictably, they seized on the most emotive topic currently on the Igbo psyche – Biafra! And they accused Governor Obiano of ordering soldiers to shoot IPOG demonstrators. What of those shot outside Anambra’s borders for Biafra-related demonstrations? Had Obiano also given the orders? When did it become a State Governor’s place to double as Army, Air Force, Navy, Police, Civil Defence Corps, or State Security commander-in-chief? When did the President abdicate that constitutional responsibility?

The lies against Governor Obiano are legion. It is a matter of public record that he attended this month’s World Igbo Congress (WIC) convention in New York by commercial aircraft. His traducers  lied  that he had chartered an airplane for the trans-Atlantic flight! He had gone with a handful of officials. They  lied  that his delegation had a 72-person roll call! He attended the opening session of the convention in a car provided by the organizers. His traducers posted the picture of a stretch limousine longer than six cars lined bumper-to-booth – the sort often seen in Nollywood films – and  lied  that it had conveyed Governor Obiano to the event at Anambra’s expense. Against specific contradictions by Dr. Ike Ekweremadu, theylied  that Obiano had walked out on the Deputy Senate President as he read a keynote address at the convention!

The young man who runs the state government’s website sits alone in an office at the Government House press office, with no ancillary staff. They  lied  that he controls 41 graduate subordinates! They abuse the Governor’s wife left, right and centre and force on her lips words she never uttered. They assert that this grand negation of truth, this unwarranted abuse of the democratic process, this unprecedented subversion of civility is imperative for their political end of annexing Government House, Awka. They deceive themselves by believing that nothing can be done to counter their infamy.

I have repeatedly entreated these fabricators to join issues with me in televised debates. I have often requested to square up to them on commercial radio. In all cases, they have declined and said No! Why are they against appearing at forums where their stories would be interrogated if not for the certainty that their tall tales would be systematically taken apart?

They wallow in soul-destroying darkness. But it was Eleanor Roosevelt, a former American First Lady, who memorably said that it was “Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” We are, therefore, throwing the rays of Anambra’s light at the darkness of these merchants of mendacity. Were it not for the fact people easily fall prey to fabrications, the best thing would have been to ignore all the lies inherent in the political formulations of Anambra’s aspirant governors and “kingmakers”. But again, it was Edmund Burke, the Irish statesman, who warned that, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Our job is neatly cut out because citizens of Anambra State are discerning.

Whether they profess Christianity, which is the dominant religion in the state, or are adherents to Igbo traditional faith, they believe in the philosophy of both the kite and the egret perching. They know that even the one primed for the gallows must be given a chance to put in a word in self-defence. They acknowledge that man cannot dethrone anyone crowned by God.

In credible politics sensible critics posit options for society’s improvement. But Chief Obiano’s traducers are bereft of alternatives. They represent no more than the listless apostles of Joseph Goebbels, to whom is attributed the saying that, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” But they forget to their hubris a number of things that Ndi Anambra remember all too well. Anambra people remember that, although it is an act of piety to routinely receive Holy Communion, it is nonetheless sacrilegious to do so in defiance of the Eight Commandment –  Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Negative press will not hand Anambra’s governorship to those intent on laying political foundations on the quicksand of falsehood. Any house constructed on such a foundation is bound to collapse. No, the good people of Anambra State will never allow the edifice of a light of brilliant rays to come crashing down on all their heads, and on account of the shameful lies of faceless hirelings shielding their true identities with deceitful masks of aliases and pseudonyms. It is not for nothing that Anambra State is the Light of the Nation! Therefore, all the shady characters who for filthy lucre are bathing in a cesspit of falsehood, and all the shadier blokes financing this new, repugnant culture of impunity and negation of uprightness will, in the ultimate, be rudely shocked by the affirmation of the age-old saying that “The head is bigger than the body!”
Chuks Iloegbunam sent this piece via  [email protected].