What’s Ikpeazu Doing With 1000 Bibles?

Nseobong Okon-Ekong interrogates the combined attributes of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State as a teacher, preacher, politician, and engaging speaker

We had just finished talking. The interview session went well; far beyond the expectation of his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Onyebuchi Ememanka. Of course, Governor Ikpeazu Okezie of Abia State is a busy man and was not supposed to spare more than 30 minutes, fielding questions from a journalist, but the conversation became mutual, as soon as we concluded the opening formalities. For close to two hours, the Abia State Chief Executive gave forthright answers to my interrogation and even volunteered information that would address all areas of my concern.

As I got up to leave the Government House Annexe in Aba, my eye caught an array of books on the shelf. I was particularly attracted to the different versions of the Holy Bible. On further enquiry, I was told there were many more at home and other locations where the governor spends time to work or relax.
The Ikpeazu administration is known for a couple of unusual things that stands it out for commendation. For instance, when Coronavirus forced a lockdown on the world, he rolled out a radio school programme and put himself on the frontline; teaching Biology. It was a huge encouragement to teachers, students and their parents who all tuned into the Abia State Broadcasting Service to listen to Mr. Governor teach.
Teaching comes naturally to Ikpeazu, who was a university lecturer before he dabbled into politics. From the look of things, chances are that he may return to the classroom at the end of his tenure as Number One Citizen of Abia State.

There is little wonder then that education has a special place in the scheme of things in the Ikpeazu administration. The governor particularly has a sentimental reason for his enduring effort to change the narrative about education in the state. Among the Igbo states, Abia is home to Aba, the famous home of copied goods, derisively known as Made-in-Aba. Abia is also famous for used clothes, called Okrika or Bend-down-select on the streets of many Nigerian cities. Stories abound of a wealthy Abia man, from Abiriba part of the state; Abiriba has been nicknamed Small London because of abundance of well-appointed houses, hitherto owned by extremely wealthy but uneducated indigenes. As the story goes, there was this rich Abiriba man who hired an educated Onitsha man to keep the books in his business.

Of course, the Onitsha man handled all his letters with his trading partners abroad. On a scheduled visit to Nigeria, the Europeans who had the impression that the Onitsha man owned the business paid all courtesies to him, completely ignoring the Abiriba man, who was told by his employee that white men only shook hands with people who could write and speak their language. And a warm handshake from his white business partner was all the valued gesture that the Abiriba man wanted. He had told his people that he will not wash his hand for days after shaking the white man! It was, therefore, a most disappointing and humiliating experience for the affluent Abiriba man who vowed that his sons will not only learn to write and speak like the white man, but live in their type of houses. So, Ikpeazu continues to push the envelope for Abians in the area of education.

The new portrayal of Aba is a burden Ikpeazu has chosen to shoulder. Starting with his decision to wear Made-in-Aba clothes and footwear always. He has raised the psyche of the shoe and garment manufacturers in Aba by taking them to trade shows in the major commercial capitals of the world; getting them to understudy manufacturing processes in a shoe factory in China and bringing home the machines to them at no cost. To understand the unfolding history of the planned and sustained economic and professional turn-around for the Aba skilled tradesman, consider the over N100 million mansion owned by Ikpeazu’s personal tailor. Mr. Governor, as always, has chosen to lead from the front by enrolling for a period of apprenticeship in an Aba-based shoe making factory. But the real McCoy is the Enyimba Economic City, designed by the same people who shaped Dubai. This is Ikpeazu’s eternal signature on Aba and Abia, as a whole, like Donald Duke did with Tinapa in Calabar, Cross River State.

Aba means many things and everything to the people of the South-east and many parts of the South-south. Any governor of Abia State may be scored a success or failure depending on what he does or did not do in Aba. Aba is a behemoth; a deep ocean that shallows anything thrown into it. Ikpeazu can live eternally in Aba or the Enyimba City can be a grave that will bury the Abia Governor’s reputation. While the adjoining roads around Ariaria Market may have been given a face-lift, but the market itself has been enmeshed in all kinds of controversies that has put a cog in Ikpeazu’s progressive wheel. Again, Aba roads and ubiquitous heaps of waste have become the Abia Governor’s Achilles heel.

When a governor builds roads, builds schools, provides healthcare facilities and the like; it’s all good, but largely rudimentary. Going into the realm of grandiose legacy projects like Enyimba Economic City catapults the governor’s reputation to dizzying heights of fame.
While he is scoring high marks in urban renewal of Aba and Umuahia; and transformative investment in the whole the gamut of heath care- from primary health centres, general hospitals, emergency response, maternal and child health, geriatric and tertiary health care, it is in the field of education that Ikpeazu stands tall.

The current regime in Abia State has constructed 482 new classroom blocks, built four new model schools, retrained teachers-using international education providers, maintained first position in the West African School Certificate Examination back-to-back for four years, empowered education inspectors for effective monitoring of students, launched school feeding programme, improved public school enrollment from 142,000 to 650,000, improved rating of Abia State University to the Second Best among state-owned universities and launched Education for Employment programme. These are some of the pages on his brilliant scorecard in the education sector.

There is another kind of teaching assignment that he is engrossed with, as well. These days, Ikpeazu is beginning to yield more and more to the compelling pull to teach from the pulpit. The attraction to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ became stronger when Governor Ikpeazu was hit with COVID-19. Everyday came with the dark uncertainty of living through the valley of shadow of death. By God’s grace, he pulled through one of the most traumatic experiences of his 57 years on earth. Many had given him up for death. The temptation to be bitter and hold in contempt those who wished dead was most overwhelming but he remembered what Jesus would do in similar circumstance; and he did just that-forgive!
Despite his busy schedule, the Seventh-day Adventist World Church has increased his work load with regular assignments to preach.

Because of his disposition to spiritual things, he does not mind bending over backwards to discharge the task. Ikpeazu is influenced by the understanding that being a governor is good, but his earnest desire is to go to heaven when Jesus Christ comes again. To him, going to heaven, is more important than anything on earth. With these combined attributes as a teacher and preacher, Ikpeazu is an engaging speaker. Add his current vocation as a politician, then it becomes clear why he is able to speak easily and confidently, and to persuade people.

I have heard it said on doubtful authority, quoting a twisted version of a Biblical scripture, that it may easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a Nigerian politician to go to heaven. Could it be that Ikpeazu inclination to collect these variety of Bibles; is a search for another way to heaven that is unknown to the multitude of churchgoers; while not jettisoning the fact that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life?

Studying 1000 versions of the Bible may be a difficult task; that is, if you are not a teacher and/or a preacher. The wholesomeness and relevance of the Bible in human circumstances aptly sums up the manual that anything that is complete and offers a one-stop information is its bible. Public office holders like Ikpeazu are obliged to take an official oath on assumption of office. I wonder if the Bible that the Governor held up as he swore to uphold the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was among the ones on his bookshelf in his Aba office.

For Ikpeazu taking an official oath on the Bible would not have been necessary, since he has already vowed before His Maker to be upright, in all his ways. Even the social drinking and clubbing that he used to indulge in sparingly are in the past. That is why he was very upset when Senator Smart Adeyemi put a question mark on his honour.

QUOTE

Aba is a behemoth; a deep ocean that shallows anything thrown into it. Ikpeazu can live eternally in Aba or the Enyimba City can be a grave that will bury the Abia Governor’s reputation. While the adjoining roads around Ariaria Market may have been given a face-lift, but the market itself has been enmeshed in all kinds of controversies that has put a cog in Ikpeazu’s progressive wheel. Again, Aba roads have become the Abia Governor’s Achilles heel