By Sonnie Ekwowusi
At long last the much-vaunted, or, if you like, the much-feared Anambra State Governorship Election has been concluded with Prof. Charles Soludo (APGA) coasting to victory. By electing Soludo, Ndi Anambra have made a big statement that a State which has been producing the best and brightest cannot be governed by a never-do-well who cannot differentiate sense from nonsense. Although the Election has come and gone it has left in its trail echoes which undoubtedly will continue to reverberate across the country for a long time. Thank God the worst did not happen during the Election as was feared. Prior to the Election there were security threats, intimidation, fear of the unknown, mutual suspicion and drum beats of war in the whole of Anambra. But thank God the Election was violence-free. No killing or maiming of human beings. Having listened to the voice of reason, IPOB called off its sit-at-home directive. IPOB did not disrupt voting or unleash any violence during the Election. The lesson here is that IPOB has a listening ear. If a meaningful peace-dialogue had been initiated and brokered with IPOB all these years the killings witnessed over these years probably would have been averted. If the Federal government could dialogue with murderous Boko Haram and bandits and even offered some of them amnesty, why can’t it dialogue with IPOB?. During the Anambra Gubernatorial Election Debate organized by ARISE TV, the trio of Andy Uba (APC), Prof Soludo (APGA) and Valentine Ozigbo (PDP) were asked what each of them would do with IPOB if voted into power. And all of them respectively answered that they would initiate dialogue with IPOB in order to find a lasting solution to the bloodshed in Anambra.
Now that Soludo has clinched victory we expect him to immediately initiate dialogue with IPOB in order to rid Anambra of violent clashes and killings. Soludo should resuscitate and strengthen the local vigilante groups in the various Anambra towns and villages. He should remedy the frosty relationship between the Anambra traditional rulers and the Willie Obiano government. Thereafter he should solicit for the assistance of the Anambra traditional rulers as well as Anambra local government chairmen and councilors in community policing of Anambra towns and villages. There should be zero tolerance for open cattle grazing in the State. To this effect, the Anambra Anti-Open Grazing law should be enforced to the letter. No compromise.
Many complain that Soludo is an arrogant, self-conceited and a proud man who believes that he knows everything. Therefore Soludo should change this wrong attitude. Nobody knows it all in this passing life. Nobody is a single verse. We all need the assistance of one another in order to get ahead in life. So we look forward to seeing a humble and self-effacing Governor Soludo who is ready to team up with others in order to restore Anambra to its glorious days. All hands should be on deck to restore Anambra to her glorious days through the implementation of the Soludo Solution. In the spirit of politics without bitterness, Soludo should quickly reach out to Andy Uba, Valentine Ozigbo and other contestants and seek their collaboration in the arduous task of rebuilding Anambra. Prof. Soludo says he will not learn on the job because he already has a baggage of public life experience. So he should bring his Central Bank experience to bear on governance. Hopefully he should deploy his World Bank and Central Bank connections in attracting several World-bank assisted projects to Anambra State provided that such World-bank assisted projects will not be tied to dirty strings or dirty conditionalities aimed at decapitating Anambra human capital. Charles, you promised during the Anambra Governorship Debate that if elected Governor you will liaise with the private sector and Anambra medical experts in the diaspora in order to establish world-class hospitals in Anambra that will be managed by these medical experts. Please do not relent on this. Primary health care system is virtually non-existent in Anambra. Soludo should not only revitalize the Anambra Health Care Centres, he should ensure that Ndi Anambra have unimpeded access to affordable primary health care services. Soludo should reinvigorate community medicine in Anambra through the establishment of rural health centers or rural medical clinics in the nooks and crannies of Anambra villages to cater for the urgent health needs of Anambra rural women and children.
In his campaign manifesto Prof. Soludo explicitly stated “our primary target is sustainable and inclusive wealth creation with jobs, and jobs. We target at least 100,000 jobs per annum in the medium term”. This is excellent. But if I may remind Prof Soludo, unlike the 20th century development economics, the 21st century economic development approach is more concerned about the welfare of the people rather than about government rhetoric. The 21st century economic approach is focused on the opportunity which the government is offering to the people to help them to use their God-given talents in order to create wealth for themselves so as to escape poverty. For example, in his classical essay entitled: A new Way of Thinking about Economic Development: The Origins of the Road to Prosperity, Marc A, Miles persuasively argues, and, I verily believe it to be true, that the goal of the 21st approach to economic development is to get the government to remove the economic barriers such as strangulating taxation, high Value Added Tax (VAT) (as the government in Nigeria is currently arbitrarily imposing on the citizenry) high import tariffs, lack of property rights, lack of rule of law, unfair trade regulations, shutting down important trade borders (as we witnessing in Nigeria at the moment) and so forth. These economic barriers inhibit people from freely using their God-given abilities to satisfy their basic human needs such as ordinary electricity supply, drinking water, shelter, ordinary hygiene, primary health and so forth. “In technical terms, writes Miles, it is not the level of poverty that is most vicious, but rather the absence of change or opportunity to escape that poverty.
Therefore, rather than trying to create jobs for many Anambrarians, Prof Soludo’s government should create the enabling environment for wealth creation in the State. He should put pressure on MTN or whoever it is to fix the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway. He should lobby for the construction of Onitsha-Lagos Rail line notwithstanding that the federal government has approved the Lagos-Calabar Railway line which hopefully will run between Port Harcourt and Lagos through Onitsha. Soludo should pressure the Federal government to complete and open the Second Niger Bridge. He should lobby for the habitual dredging of River Niger. He should turn Onitsha into the Taiwan of Nigeria. There is a time for everything under the sun. There is a time for waywardness; a time for stupidity; a time for dancing naked; a time for chasing after the wind and a time for kidnapping a sitting Governor. With the successful conclusion of the Anambra Governorship Election adjudged by many as comparatively and objectively free and fair, INEC’s lapses and inefficiencies notwithstanding, I make bold to say that Anambra has witnessed a new dawn. Now is the acceptable time in Anambra. This is the day of salvation for Ndi Anambra.
