In one year, Obiano has proved to be Anambra’s messiah – Senator IgbekeIn one year, Obiano has proved to be Anambra’s messiah – Senator Igbeke

Posted by admin Adamawa, Headlines, State News Thursday, March 26th, 2015

By Our Reporter on March 26, 2015 National

FROM DAVID ONWUCHEKWA, NNEWI

A philanthropist turned politician, Senator Al Ubanesse Igbeke, a high ranking senator, former member of the National Political Reform Conference, Director General of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) Campaign Organisation, has continued to bask in the euphoria of the successes recorded by the administration of Chief Willie Obiano, governor of Anambra State, in just one year in office.

Describing Obiano’s one year in office as very eventful, Igbeke said that President Goodluck Jonathan has shown Nigerians what civil rule and democratic governance are all about and thus deserves second term in office.

He spoke on these in an interview with our correspondent.

Excerpts:

What is your assessment of Gov Obiano in the last one year?

To me, a year in a four-year term is really not enough yardstick to measure performance but it could be a pointer as to how well the office holder would perform in the long run. However, there is an Igbo adage that says: ‘you can only tell a blind man that there is no oil in the soup, but that of salt, the blind man will decide that by himself by using his tongue.’ Anambra State under Governor Obiano is getting transformed. Just within a short time of his emergence, security was restored and all can sleep with two eyes closed. And he has continued to throw result-oriented punches.

I will say that Governor Willie Obiano’s one year in office has been very eventful with skyrocketing performance. First, he tackled crime and criminality with dispatch. He committed security votes to what it is actually meant for; fighting crime. And created enabling environment for businesses to thrive and restored investors’ confidence in the state, which is why Anambra State has suddenly become foreign and local investment destination. That there is near zero violent crime rate in Anambra State today is because Governor Obiano believes that the success of his socio-economic policies is dependent on his ability to ensure and guarantee the protection of life and property in the state; committing huge resources and intelligence into securing the state and wrestling her from the claws and jaws of kidnappers, armed robbers and other acts of banditry and gangstarism.

Is it only in the area of security that the governor could be ad-judged to have performed exceedingly well. Is this enough to rate him high?

You know, in appraising Governor Obiano’s one year in office, we must take into account what the security situation was before he came in and what it has been since he came into office. However, he has done extremely well in many sectors. Of course, this was a man that met an Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) base of about N500 million a month, and in less than one year, he blocked conduit pipes through which the revenues of the state drain into individual pockets and succeeded in raising the IGR base of the state to N1.1 billion monthly and has set a new target of N3.3billion monthly. He is constructing five over head bridges (flyover) simultaneously in Awka, to make Awka a truly state capital, which previous administrations couldn’t muster courage to delve into. He is running riot with construction of roads aimed at crisscrossing all the nooks and crannies of Anambra State. Cargo and aircraft refueling airport is afoot in Anambra State, he has secured approval from the Federal Government, which is to say that aircraft, both on local and international routes, will land in Anambra State for refueling. In the whole Eastern Nigeria, there is no cargo airport, which is why our importers and businessmen still bring in their goods through Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos despite the internationalisation of Akanu Ibiam Airport, Enugu, which for now does not have cargo section.

Anambra State under Governor Obiano’s watch, in less than a year has attracted investments of about $3 billion and the target in four years is between $15 billion to $20 billion. You can imagine when this money is converted to naira, it will come to trillions of naira. Now, if this kind of amount is circulating in a state, like Anambra, the economy of the state will be so robust, the internally generated revenue will increase, job opportunities will be created and that automatically leads to transformation of all sorts.

Workers get their salaries before the end of the month under Governor Willie Obiano. And for the first time, Anambra workers got their entitlements for 2014 on December 24, 2014, as against the usual practice of getting their entitlements deep into the New Year. Our hospitals are being rebuilt, remodeled and equipped. Our schools are getting adequate attention from his government. Anambra as agrarian state has never had it so good; agriculture has continued to receive the best of attention from this government, local farmers seem to be the greatest beneficiaries of this government. This is a man that has come to work for the people of Anambra State and he has demonstrated overwhelming capacity to do that and that is the reason why I am involved, not only to support him but to ensure he becomes the acknowledged most performing Governor in the whole federation.

With all these you’ve enumerated, the governor still gets criticized…

The people of Anambra State, who are daily feeling the impact of Governor Willie Obiano’s administration in very many positive ways are happy and wished he had been around a little longer. But then, let’s not forget the fact that too many thorns and pitfalls were orchestrated against this government by the people you referred to; they create a picture of unpreparedness and under-performance. Incidentally, they are shocked to see that the government is firing from all cylinders. These were the people that awarded more contracts in three months to their exit than they ever did in any three months since they came into office. They carried out promotions and increased salaries at the twilight of their government, which they had hitherto refused to do. They conducted council elections three months to their exit, an exercise they vowed never to conduct while they held sway. They disbursed billions of state funds to churches, charity organisations, NGOs and frivolity ends and left near empty treasury for the young administration.

These people divided and caused communal rifts in so many communities by giving staff of office less than three months to their exit to people who did not pass through the process of coronation, let alone being Igwe-elect in their various communities, and made them over night Igwe over a people who do not want them. Their calculation actually was that by now, most communities in Anambra would have been embroiled in fratricidal war, that contractors would have abandoned projects they are handling and there would have been industrial and labour crisis because of unpaid salaries and then, of course, they will place the blame on the new government of Obiano. If not, how can one explain to me, the rationale behind the fire brigade frenzy with which state funds were filtered away under the guise they did, three months to the end of their reign in office?

The wife of the governor is said to have a pet project that is taking care of a lot of women and vulnerable children. How complimentary is that?

Very complimentary and in fact, a Midas touch of its own, it is called Caring Family Enhancement (CAFE), an initiative she midwifed, aimed at giving meaning to the dispossessed and disadvantaged, particularly, the wretched of the earth and without much publicity or noise, she has, in the last 12 months, traversed the nooks and crannies of Anambra State, combing and picking the pieces of those shattered by life’s inequalities. Mrs. Ebelechukwu Obiano is truly living up to the true meaning of her name. She is a woman of great cerebral prodigy, a woman whose only hunger is to reduce the pains of poverty, hunger ignorance, disease and avoidable deaths in the state.

Your party, APGA ,has managed to hold on to Anambra State. As the Director General of APGA Campaign Organisation, how do you hope to consolidate APGA’s hold in the coming elections?

Surprisingly, many people tend to be ignorant of the fact that the APGA is the third largest political party in Nigeria and a big determinant in every general election. And far from the erroneously held impression of APGA being an Igbo party, APGA is a national party with presence in all the states of the federation and Abuja. But like every other political party in Nigeria, must have a base for its projection and for APGA, South East is our launching pad into the nation’s political space. We are opening up the party for general ownership and participation. It has to be truly a movement that it is, a party for the progressives, a party that trades in people not such that trades off potential party builders.

You see, it is not just about the individual holding an elective position under the auspices of APGA, but about the character and manifesto of the party. Ever since APGA came into Anambra State, the state has witnessed steady progress. Policies and programmes are carried over into succeeding administration with the same mindset but a renewed vigor, no change in policy-trust, no abandoned project and that is why you see Governor Obiano funding and delivering projects he did not award.

-Sunwp_posts

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Posted by admin on Mar 26 2015. Filed under Adamawa, Headlines, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry