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RECENTLY, the Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, declared that nothing will make him dump the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the platform which facilitated and guaranteed his emergence for this plum office. He affirmed that his resolution on this was borne out of personal convictions.
Nigerian political parties are virtually the same thing with no critical distinctions or defining ideologies that distinguish such associations elsewhere. The basic attraction here is which of the groups will serve the selfish interest of the politician at any given time! Our mostly charlatanistic politicians defect when they fail to achieve their usually bizarre ambitions in any particular formation—it is never because of conflicting principles or divergent ideological persuasions as there are none.
Most members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are either renegades from the fossilizing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or persons from the ragtag and inchoate oppositional forces who feel that it makes the best sense in a warped political system to belong to the party in charge of national governance for indeterminate benefits, protection by the federal might and imaginary shield from the currency of optimal leadership.
Another curious motivation for weird Nigerian politicians who have made political entrepreneurship of democracy is the obsession to align with the ruling party in the self-delusion that in the event of inevitable embezzlement, the father-figure will be protective in the natural tendency of passionate parental shield over offspring. The bullish Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) comes to mind here as the major reason thievish politicians, particularly governors, irresponsibly and thoughtlessly defect to the ruling party without the cogency of logic. There may be a few exceptions of those who defect on credibility/principle or personal grouses about some members.
Issuing from the above is the decision of Gov. Obiano not to abandon APGA for APC—a suspicion that had been a subject of gossip in the past one year or thereabouts. It is proper that the man at the centre of it all has debunked any such political harlotry that borders on associational convolution. This could only have been possible if Gov. Obiano had a predilection for public treasury looting/holistic propensity for other criminalities and the absolute need to identify with the ruling party in foreclosure of any concomitant EFCC inquisition that embarrassingly hallmarks a spectacle of public odium.
With this kind of official propriety demonstrative of the sterling character and professional pedigree of Gov. Obiano, it is not too early to robustly prospect the profundity of his second term in office, especially with his having institutionalized good governance in the first leg of his inimitable administration. His profuse antecedents since coming to power will speak volumes for him—and by extrapolation—distinguish him in the years ahead in our society signposted by clownish pedestrianism.
The unprecedented agricultural transformation taking place in Anambra State today is so massively revolutionary that you would think the state is sitting on the largest acreage of land in the country.
Alas, Anambra is the smallest in Nigeria in terms of space without any architectural possibility of expansion and ravaged by one of the worst erosion crises of our time, yet with diligence, commitment, technology and expertise the passionate governor is doing marvelously well in this sector as in other sectors we shall briefly touch on presently. The Ozumba North mechanized rice project is already on the export trail.
In my state of Abia, the faculties of the state’s college of education and the Abia State University, Justice Ministry staff and other organizational employees are perpetually on strike over non-payment of salaries that backlog! Not so with our subject today. Probably because of his supranational financial management prowess, it is on verifiable record that instead of owing workers, Gov. Obiano is now known as the “Alert Governor” because public servants get their statutory monthly emoluments via bank (credit) alert messages latest the 26th of every month. It is cruel and callous for any governor to default in this existential sphere.
Going by constituency contributions to the administration of Anambra State, the south and central divisions have both done two terms of eight years each, while the north that produced Gov. Obiano completes four years in March 2018. The imperativeness of this beyond his multifarious accomplishments is the equitable need for him to also round off with a second term. If he was not doing well, this template will pale into insignificance as the zone could equally come up with another prospect that will alter or truncate the four-year zonal arrangement in this Light of the Nation?
In the past two years, Anambra State has become a hub of industrial revolution and an engineering site with copious direct foreign and local investments swarming the state. This could not have been possible without enablers and pillars put in place by the current administration. Interestingly, the benefits and results of the various institutional partnerships are yielding profuse results already amid flourishing expectations from those still under gestation. The legendary commercial traditions of the state have now been harmonized and standardized from age-long primitive practices for sustainable hauls.
The Obiano-led government is working towards creating 320,000 job opportunities by the end of the first leg of the guaranteed two-term tenure. This promise is hinged on the overall investment advancements taking place in the state as attested to by eminent citizens of the state, the academia, communities, businessmen/women and international investors who have begun their gargantuan investment initiatives and collaborations with their host.
That Governor Obiano is blazing a superlative trail in his state is no longer news, but the scope and magnitude of the currency of multi-sectoral transformations. Today, Anambra is the safest state in the country because of the security passion of Chief Obiano. The success story of this intervention is being emulated by other states with asphyxiating security challenges.
It takes only a man of vision to record the accomplishments of the present leadership in Anambra State. There is no other way to explain the plethora of revolutionary developments in the growth of the state hitherto reputed for incomparable backwardness in the South-East. And the most interesting bit is that Gov. Obiano insists that the magnitude of accomplishments so far is still at its foundational stage with an unflinching promise that more eye-popping investments and results are underway! With a combined direct foreign and local investment of $3 billion in the state, a financial management wizard and an unparalleled economic emancipator has arrived in Awka, the state capital, which is undergoing Romanesque architectural re-engineering that has never happened in the history of the state since its creation on August 27, 1991.
With the foregoing that I have summarized and other innumerable landmarks left out because of space constraint, I have the conviction that Chief Obiano’s second term shortly is cast in gold. I made a similar declaration in a four-part article just before his election. His chances are even brighter now and should be brightest in the next governorship poll.
Say it loud everywhere and quote me: this Willie is working! I share in his glory and story of two-year quintessence.