Governor Theodore Orji of Abia explains how the state was rescued from the clutches of political godfathers, whose greed ran it aground

Can you share with us what went through your mind when you were elected governor while in detention in 2007?

What happened to me (my detention by the EFCC) was a clear sign of what God wanted to do with me in Abia State. I was incarcerated for three months when the election was held. All the while, I didn’t know that God was panel-beating me for the job that I was going to do in Abia State. Some people didn’t realise this, while others did. People who are conversant with history will know how people who experienced a similar incident eventually achieved greatness. My experience was historical because greatness doesn’t come without some sacrifice.

From the moment I won that election, I knew I had a job to do in Abia State. Upon my release from detention, the first fight I waged was to remove Abia’s face from idolatory and return it to God. I knew the first thing to do was to seek divine intervention so that things would work out well for us. It was the first challenge we faced and it was not an easy thing to overcome.

I combined the work of a politician and a missionary and God helped us to succeed. That marked the beginning of our success. We pleased God and He, in turn, was pleased with us. With that, God said: ‘Yes, these are my people.’ And that is why Abia State is worthy of her appellation as ‘God’s Own State’. Having succeeded in that, we started fighting other ills.

•Governor Theodore Orji

Apart from your initial battle to free the state from the ills that hampered its growth, how has the journey generally been as governor in the last seven years?

The journey has been rough; we cannot say it has been smooth because no politician who is serious about making a change can have a smooth sail in office. Besides, change is a difficult process. It has been rough, no doubt. I am saying this in the sense that Abia as a young state lacked many essential things, particularly basic development that could have made it a proper state. Apart from that, we faced other challenges like insecurity, lack of infrastructure, psychological as well as an under- achieving economy. The problems were overwhelming because there was no foundation on which we could develop the state.

We took off first by kick-starting a transformative process. It was a process of transforming from the gloom the state had suffered in the recent past to the prosperity it currently enjoys and that is why projects executed by this administration are dubbed legacy projects. We are determined to leave worthy legacies that will be remembered and appreciated by everyone, and even by generations yet unborn.

If when I came on board, we had a comfortable government house, I would have considered using the money we spent on building a new one on other projects. If when I came on board, we had a conference centre befitting of our government and our people or a secretariat for the civil servants, who are the engine room of the government, I could have moved on to the other things we lacked.