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Anambra State is 18 years old and reputed to have produced prominent Nigerians like Dr Nnamdi Aziliwe who was the first President of Nigeria,Professor Chike Obi, a distinguished mathematician, Dr chuba Okadigbo,former Senate President, Chinue Achebe, Dr Chris Ngige, former Governor etc, Endowed with such patriarchs and patriots,natural and human resources with Onitsha and Nnewi as the commercial hub in the South East of Nigeria,Anambra's position in the comity of states should be awe'inspiring in the level of development attained. But the reality about Anambra is awful with grimmer prospects for the future.

Anambra is categorized as one of the six restive states in Nigeria. More appalling is that Anambra is non SEEDS complaint.SEEDS is the acronym for the state economic Empowerment Development Strategy and is a document under the Millennium Developmental Goals (MDGS) with policies and programmes that aims at poverty reduction, employment generation, wealth creation, human development and capacity building by the year 2015.

The SEEDS document for Anambra State was written in 2003\2004 and benched marked from the 1st to 4th june 2005. Anambra emerged among the best eight states in the country. Anambra high score in the SEEDS bench marking was seen as a brilliant feat in good Governance and it therefore attracted European Union into Anambra state. Those eight states were called SEEDS states which implied that already had administrative structures on ground and ready for donor intervention. Therefore,being a SEEDS state was a sine-qua-non for any bilateral or multi-lateral donor agency to work in any state in Nigeria. Amazingly, Anambra politics is capricious. Ngige worked very hard and got Anambra to qualify as a SEEDS state before he left in March 2006. In April 2006,European Union commenced its programmes in the SEEDS states which included Anambra. So the arrival of the European Union in the state Gov. Peter Obi had just taken the mantle of leadership apparently gave Obi the credit for bringing European Union to Anambra Obi knew nothing about European Union. It was merely a lucky coincidence for Obi.

Anambra is non SEEDS complaint because the Anambra State Integrated Development Strategy (ANIDS) programme is at variance with and asymmetrical with SEEDS contents and emphasis on the programme approach to development. To mention a few anomalies and failures in ANIDS
The stock exchange Market established in Onitsha under the MF between the state government and the already existing indigenous transporters. Government is not a good conductor of business enterprises, rather the huge sums of money used in purchasing ANIDS cars and buses would have been used to finance our indigenous transporters in the areas of: Transport Reforms, Capacity building and Capital Formation as that would empower them to enhance transportation in Anambra State.

Another important tenet in SEEDS document is the annual audit accounts and annual budgets on annual expenditure and financial plans or the year. It ia also a process of carrying the people along. An examination of the 2007 and 2008 Budgets of Anambra State reveals that the actual expenditures were missing. That meant that the present administration is not carrying people along and does not want the tax payer to know how his money is spent.

For the past three years, there has not been any employment of school leavers or teachers because it (ANIDS) did not provide for employment generation and wealth creation. In short, the development of the state s not planned or programmed and it is injudicious for us to keep our mouth shut as Anambra continues to slip down into Oblivion.

WHAT ANAMBRA NEEDS is a visionary leader; a visionary leader is leadership that is original , possess the capacity to think about or plan the future with great imagination, intelligence and optimism. That means that a visionary leader armed with the in dices of development should be able to make forward>backward economic projection and be able to foresee what results are expected. In a nutshell, other ingredients of productive leadership include honesty, fairness, transparency, accountability, courage and finally a good leader must be able to provide quality service delivery to the people.

Now, that the Anambra gubernatorial election appraoches, Anambrarians should be allowed to elect their leader by themselves and not by installation or imposition from above. We need to run a decent, transparent and honest campaign\election, anchored on issues of development and protection of democracy. By so doing, we shall achieve best practice within the framework of our economic development which will give rise to governance and an effective Anambra state.We need to elect a governor who would observe the Rule of Law, Human Rights, introduce reforms with social, economic and infrastructural development objectives as required by the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) translated into SEEDS at the state level.

We need a leadership that will exploit and harness our resources for meaningful development. For instance, with Anambra's unexploited oil reserves, the state should begin to build a five year development plan around its oil so that when the oil is exploited, it will be properly harnessed and utilized.
Am optimistic about the future as we move forward to produce a serious and purposeful leadership with an envision, people-focused development programmes.

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