Dateline: January 2011: The inglorious Ohakim regime was about to face
Imolites for a second term after nearly four wasted years in power. With
nothing to show except cartoon scripts of ‘achievements’ that exist only
in the subconscious of the officials of the government and in giant bill
boards littered all over Imo State, with a notorious penchant to provoke
the people of Imo State through haughty and empty arrogance and with the
citizenry openly pitted against him, Ohakim went on a recruiting binge for
who will tag with him on the impossible re-election battle. His then
deputy, Ada Okwuonu was ditched and he went to recruit Viola Onwuliri
whose husband Celestine Onwuliri was running out his tenure as Vice
Chancellor of Federal University of Technology Owerri. Ohakim, a soiled
and bad product, with no known achievement to sell for his four years in
power threw a bait and his bait caught a woman with an indecent ambition
and insatiable appetite for the klieg light and Ohakim went home and threw
a party that he had found a panacea to his possible exit from power.
It took the mere suggestion of this bait for the woman to go gaga and
ensured that such ‘great opportunity’ never eluded her. Her friends
counseled. Her priests advised, her relations weighed in, her associates
adviced her but they might have been talking to a stone for Viola Onwuliri
had seen a life long opportunity and she was not going to miss that for
anything else. Oh, yes, ‘Ohakim is an incumbent’, as she was wont to tell
those near her then and that it would take a miracle to defeat an
incumbent. When she was confirmed as the official tag of Ohakim in that
ill fated drive of ambition, she went to work fully charged. She termed
herself a magician and without shame, appropriated the liabilities of
Ohakim. She was on a gallivanting spree, dancing and reveling all over Imo
State, extolling the virtues of her master. She shunned all entreaties to
abandon a sinking ship and went to town with how Ohakim and PDP were
invincible because they were in power. Onwuliri made it a point to tell
Imolites that whoever promised them free education in such an
educationally advanced state like Imo is a thief, in apparent reference to
Governor Rochas Okorocha’s infallible promise to grant free education to
Imolites on election. She masked and reveled and was backed up with sirens
and prodded to affix “Her Excellency” to her name. vanity and ambition
jammed and led her to the guillotine and her fancy ride in the lane of
idiocy lasted.
The rest and all that happened when Imo people trooped out en mass to vote
out Ohakim and Onwuliri, the strident efforts to steal the mandate and the
stiff resistance Imo people put up are now history. But the shame and
disgrace Onwuliri suffered could be better imagined for Igbo people have
the wise saying that the disgrace of a noble is worse than his death,
there was no doubt that Viola Onwuliri practically descended into oblivion
as she kissed the dust with her master when Imolites dared tanks and guns
to reject their soiled candidacy in 2011 governorship election.
The Viola Owuliri tragedy was aptly captured by erudite Prof. Mark Odu on
his treatise; “Viola Onwuliri; The Shameful Lust Of An Amazon”. That
naturally was a tragedy of inexplicable proportion because there were
enough warning by those eager to save this sinking amazon but her lust and
vaunting ambition had the better parts of her. To compensate her and
possibly wipe away the huge barge of disgrace that followed her after this
ill fated vouyage, the PDP side-stepped other aspirants for ministerial
nomination from Imo State, including her principal Ohakim, who were
applying to be appointed minister in the Jonathan regime to make Onwuliri
a Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. To her, the star is ever bright!
The first action she took, which showed that she learnt nothing from her
fatal vouyage in indecent ambition, was to pick up her pet tag of ‘Her
Excellency’, claiming she is a minister of foreign affairs and as such is
entitled to go by that title.
Since she assumed her nondescript duty, she had made it a point of duty to
not only shows her unbridled loyalty to Ohakim to whom she owes her queer
political rise. She had elected to be the talisman a discredited PDP that
was chase out of power nearly three years ago hopes to employ to climb
back to power. She had made the frequent mounting of revelry and jesting
in Owerri her primary duty as hardly any week passes without Viola
Onwuliri entertaining PDP members in Owerri with the absurd and silly
demand that Governor Rochas Okorocha should account for the allocations
that have accrued to Imo since his regime began. Good demand but one
guesses that Onwuliri always screens her eyes shut whenever she makes this
laughable demand for she is buffeted on all sides by real, hard and
touchable evidences of where the Rochas government invests the resources
of Imo State since May 1999 when the rescue government came on stream to
bail the state from decrepit state the PDP dumped it for the past twelve
baleful years.
From the comprehensive reconstruction and tarring of all township roads in
Owerri, Orlu and Okigwe, to the complete opening up of all the rural
communities, to the complete replacement of the dingy huts that formed the
government house where Ohakim wanted to romp with Onwuliri, to the array
of glittering face of public buildings in Owerri, to the new model schools
(one of which I am sure, is located in Onwuliri’s hometown), to the
millions of Imo students in all levels of education who are enjoying free
and qualitiative education despite the Onwuliris and the Ohakims. With
these and the legions of Imolites who were given gainful and real
employment, to the communities that had their lingering leadership tussles
settled, to the community governments that had taken governance to the
grassroots, to the thousands of indigent widows and orphans that are being
sustained by the Owelle government, it is obvious that Viola Onwuliri must
be really queer in demanding where the Rochas government is spending its
allocations. Again, the government owes Viola Onwuliri and her brood of
share reapers in PDP any explanation where it is spending its resources,
should they decide to feign ignorance of the earth shaking achievements of
Governor Okorocha. It rather owes any explanation to the people of Imo
State who are seeing the resources not as handouts from the overlords of
PDP but as meaningful projects in their respective communities. One would
have thought that Viola Onwuliri would have been moderated by the death of
her husband through an accident that is traceable to the corruption and
incompetence of the government she serves but from all intents and
purposes, she feels the death of her husband has freed her to indulge in
the well known prosecution of a deadly ambition to remain in one political
office or the other. What a pity!
But we may be mistaking if we believe that Viola Onwuliri is ruled by the
well being of Imo State in her present voyage in desperate folly. Like
any other PDP member, she is desperate to please Jonathan and retain her
lowly ministerial position. She is desperate to sing sweet songs in the
ears of Jonathan so as to continue remaining in power. Her desperation is
legendary and was the reason why she went on a gravy ride at the back of a
soiled Ohakim and had a fall that is akin to humpty dumpty’s. The
desperate and ambitious amazon knows that she has nothing to point to or
celebrate for her stay as a minister of state. Much more, it will be
foolhardy to challenge Viola Onwuliri to state what Imo State has gained
from the hefty 52 per cent of allocations the federal government takes
every month. For the avoidance of doubts, Onwuliri wants Okorocha to
account for a fraction of the remaining 42 per cent Imo State gets from
the federation account. When is she going to account for the huge 52 per
cent the Jonathan government pockets while ensuring that Nigeria remains a
territory worst than Somalia for the past four years?
Can Onwuliri tell us the federal projects her clan of PDP rent collectors
have done in Imo State? It is a pity that Onwuliri would be gasping for
words with this elementary challenge because she knows there is none. She
knows that under the PDP, Igbos have been completely wiped out and remain
pitiable solicitors that would need the kind of disgraceful showing Viola
Onwuliri is staging in Imo State today, to remain in nondescript offices
like minister of state for foreign affairs. Onwuliri knows she is fighting
the wind in asking stupid questions that betray her desperation because
Imo people know exactly where their money is being ploughed. But as
Nigerians, they don’t know where their trillions are going into under
Onwuliri’s master, Goodluck Jonathan. All they know are the trillions
being stolen on daily basis. They know of the rising population of
unemployed youths, the worsening state of poverty, they know of the
general state of insecurity, they know of massive oil thefts, they know of
worsening roads, they know of worsening state of power, worsening state of
education, health, public looting, etc. these woeful stories are what they
want Viola Onwuliri to address and also tell Imo people what they have
gained from Jonathan and not the silly ramblings of ‘the achievements of
President Jonathan’, as she always recites in a bid to please her master.
She should quickly provide these nagging answers and back them up with
concrete projects, as Owelle Rochas is doing or quit cashing in on our
intelligence for her selfish benefits.
Uche Onwuchekwa.