Happy Birthday Aninri: Reflections as our council boss turns 56

It is far from coincidence that Aninri is, today, the birthdate our council Chairman Hon. Bennett Ajah, beret of the expected boisterousness that should have filled the land; the general feeling, rather, is that of mournful and bland as though nothing of significance is happening.

But Chairman Bennett is a hero or, better said, was a hero. According to several accounts, his parents, now late, lived great communal lives and were noted for their uprightness, leadership prowess and philanthropic gestures. It was said that while their son inherited their gift of enterprise, he, however, lacks every other basic quality that endears a man to his immediate community.

Even as we sincerely wish him many more years of success and good health, I’m positive that no decent Aninri native is celebrating him. We don’t have any reason to do so.

After being rigged into control of the Aninri treasury in February 2022, Hon. Bennett Ajah has since pursued strategic designs meant to drive us backward as a people. We can look from the highly publicized accounts of his clandestine attempt to eliminate people of Oduma, Nenwe, Ndeabor and Mpu from Enugu State civil service to his lopesided dreams of infrastructural placement among the constituting communities. And how nearly N2 million was blazingly squandered in a single day in the fruitless search for ghost workers among Aninri workforce will always highlight the unchecked waste of billions of naira in Bennett’s administration.

For the first time since 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and, indeed, all supporting social and political structures in Aninri local government area, have all collapsed under this man.

Hon. Bennett Ajah is one of those men who are very useful to the society outside politics. But, even after having proven to be a major disaster, he is seeking a second term in the 2024 Enugu State council polls. “Affliction shall not rise a second time” has since become a rallying cry among our people as every single stakeholder, home and abroad, have continued to voice their opposition to another Bennett candidacy.

Even as many wounds he has inflicted on our land remain, I have the feeling that Aninri, very forgiving people, would be extravagantly gracious in showering wishes to Menia on December 2024 if he could go back to Port Harcourt to face his businesses.