Obinna Oriaku, Before The Poetry, Can We Have Some Prose Answers? – By Pastor Prof Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke

OBINNA ORIAKU, BEFORE THE POETRY, CAN WE HAVE SOME PROSE ANSWERS?

Obinna Oriaku has written another long sermon on Governor Alex Otti and security votes. Fair enough. Every government should be questioned.

But there is one small problem: Obinna Oriaku was not an innocent spectator during the Ikpeazu years. He was Commissioner for Finance from 2015 to 2019.

So, Ekwedike, before we accept today’s lecture on fiscal morality, kindly answer these questions.

1. HOW MUCH EXACTLY DID GOVERNOR OKEZIE IKPEAZU RECEIVE AS SECURITY VOTE WHILE YOU WERE COMMISSIONER FOR FINANCE?

Not estimates.

Not political grammar.

Not stories about today’s government.

Give Abians the figures year by year for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

You were Commissioner for Finance. You should know.

2. WHO PROCESSED THOSE SECURITY-VOTE PAYMENTS?

Were they processed through the Ministry of Finance during your tenure?

If yes, what amounts passed through the financial system under your watch?

If no, explain the mechanism by which they were funded.

3. DID YOU EVER PUBLICLY OPPOSE IKPEAZU’S SECURITY VOTE WHILE YOU WERE HIS COMMISSIONER?

Please produce the memo, letter, Executive Council objection, resignation threat, press statement or other contemporaneous record.

If security votes are now such an important test of fiscal morality, when exactly did you discover this principle?

Before May 2019 or afterwards?

4. WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT THE REPORTED FIGURES FROM THE IKPEAZU ERA?

Public reporting citing government records subsequently placed the governor’s security vote at ₦7.4 billion in 2019 and ₦6.1 billion in 2020.

Do you accept those figures?

If you dispute them, give Abians the correct figures and the documentary basis for your correction.

5. AND WHAT ABOUT THE PENSIONERS?

You have now linked security spending under Otti with pensioners’ welfare.

Excellent.

Then apply precisely the same standard backwards.

By 2022, Abia pensioners were publicly protesting 38 months of pension arrears and carrying placards specifically demanding that Governor Ikpeazu cut his security vote and pay pensioners.

Where was this thunderous indignation then?

When did you first publicly demand that Ikpeazu reduce his security vote to clear pension arrears?

Produce the statement.

6. YOU SAY OTTI’S SECURITY EXPENDITURE SHOULD BE COMPARED WITH WORKERS’ WELFARE. SHALL WE APPLY THAT EQUATION TO IKPEAZU TOO?

Security vote + unpaid pensions + salary arrears + gratuities.

Let us put the Ikpeazu-era numbers beside today’s numbers and allow Abians to judge.

Surely the formula cannot change simply because the man occupying Government House has changed.

7. NOW TO THE MASQUERADE.

Ekwedike, there is another question Abians deserve an answer to:

What exactly was your dance with the “Masquerade”?

Who was the “Masquerade”?

What was the political and financial relationship?

What did the “Masquerade” represent in the power structure surrounding the government in which you served?

And most importantly, did the Masquerade ever dance anywhere near Abia’s public treasury?

If this metaphor refers to a specific episode, person or transaction, tell Abians plainly what happened. Let us deal in evidence rather than insinuation.

8. WERE SECURITY VOTES UNDER IKPEAZU “STATUTORY AND LEGITIMATE” TOO?

You have written that you personally telephoned Alex Otti during the campaign and explained to him that security vote was “statutory and legitimate.”

Interesting.

Then answer this:

If security vote is inherently legitimate, why is the existence of security expenditure today presented as evidence of hypocrisy rather than examining what was spent, how it was classified and what security outcomes it financed?

And if quantum is your objection, give us the comparable Ikpeazu figures first.

9. YOU WERE THE FINANCE COMMISSIONER. OPEN YOUR OWN BOOKS.

You are uniquely positioned to elevate this discussion above propaganda.

Publish a simple table:

Year | Ikpeazu Security Vote | Other Security Expenditure | Total Security Spending | Pension Arrears | Salary Arrears

2015.

2016.

2017.

2018.

2019.

Then place Otti’s corresponding figures beside them.

That would be public accountability.

Anything less begins to look suspiciously like selective accounting accompanied by political poetry.

10. FINALLY, EKWEDIKE: ONE STANDARD OR TWO?

If ₦23 billion allegedly spent on security under Otti deserves interrogation, interrogate it.

But the same forensic torch must illuminate the government in which Obinna Oriaku himself controlled the Finance Ministry.

You cannot audit 2023–2026 with a microscope and examine 2015–2019 with your eyes closed.

So before the next lengthy epistle, give Abians three things:

THE IKPEAZU SECURITY-VOTE FIGURES.

YOUR OWN POSITION ON THOSE PAYMENTS WHILE YOU WERE FINANCE COMMISSIONER.

AND THE FULL STORY OF YOUR DANCE WITH THE “MASQUERADE.”

After that, we can return to prose and poetry.

Until then, the more interesting question is not whether Alex Otti once criticised security votes.

It is:

OBINNA ORIAKU, WHAT DID YOU DO ABOUT SECURITY VOTES WHEN YOU ACTUALLY SAT AT THE TABLE WHERE ABIA’S FINANCES WERE MANAGED?

Over to you, Ekwedike.