Nigerian Bank Nigeria – Opportunity To Reposition Anambra

Source Thisday: Uchem Obi, January 21st 2010

Lagos — As the count-down to Anambra guber election next month begins, everywhere you turn to, there are promises, promises and promises coming from different candidates. Some of these promises are entirely clownish and mischievous while some are wholly unattainable, just designed to defraud the voters. It is the duty of all stakeholders in the Anambra project to expose the lies, the half-truths and delusions embedded in these promises, so that, only the candidate with a glaring capacity to deliver on promises, would be elected on February 6th 2010.

One candidate has resolutely been saying he will in four years turn the state into African Dubai-Taiwan. Is this feasible? Clarifications must be made for the benefit of those who are getting hooked into this promise, which is more utopic than realistic.

Taiwan broke away from China and proclaimed its autonomy in the aftermath of the 2nd world war, that ended in 1945.And from then on, Taiwan began the long and arduous journey towards internal development and self realization and it was not until the late 70’s and early 80’s that the break- away nation burst into international reckoning. This was a period of over thirty years and for anyone to claim to be able to turn Anambra state, with its federal allocation fund of less than 48 billion a year, into African Taiwan in four years, is a gross insult on our collective intelligence. We are not cave men..

What about the promise to turn Anambra into Dubai ? Is it feasible too? Yes or no, we do not want to be like Dubai . Financial indices emanating from the Emirate shows that Dubai is debt ridden to the extent that CNN called it “an unfortunate extravagant adventure”. It is a well known fact that the Emirate is massively borrowing to fend off the sharks that must come one day. And when they come, it will be the beginning of neo-colonialism because they would dictate polices, regulate economy and strangulate the nation. Dubai is a failed ambition, which we all must use our votes to stop from being recreated on our shores.

Let the candidate take us to Ghana . A few years ago nearly every household here had Ghanaian servants, who hew woods and draw water for us, polish our shoes, mend our clothes as Obioma the tailor. They fix our hairs and kept our brothels functioning. Today, Ghana is the paradise of West Africa and not Dubai or Taiwan.

Rawlins and his predecessors just decided to commit themselves to the development of Ghana for Ghanaians and by Ghanaians, a paradise where there is no power outage, dry taps or un-motorable roads. In Ghana , students and pupils do not stay months at home because government cannot pay their teachers. In Ghana, the President and his Ministers do not run abroad to get treatment for migraine.

Please stop this fraudulent yak about African Dubai-Taiwan. Give us the Ghana example and we shall live to be happy, but continuing this Dubai- Taiwan utopia could be evidence of emptiness.

Another candidate anchors his promises on mere two sentences on different bill-boards. The first says, “the work of development will begin again” and the second says ” I have done it again, this time I will do it even better”. And this is where the people are listening to Governor Peter Obi’s assessment of this candidate, who illegally occupied the government house for thirty- four months.

The governor said that this candidate constructed less than two hundred kilometers of road in the state and this figure, when compared with over hundred billion Naira he received from Federal allocation shows that the candidate, despite the huge popularity he enjoys because of some peculiar happenstances during his time in office, is in retrospect a huge failure and disappointment to the state.

He never had any programme for schools, hospitals, urbanization, workers welfare and commerce and industry. The only government hotel in Awka, Ikenga hotels, which was functional when he came into office, was shut down by his administration, while he preferred to dissipate state funds on privately owned hotels, which he patronized unabashedly.

And yet now, he has no definite plans for the state except sailing on the wings of fast fading popularity acquired through concerted propaganda. If this is the kind of work that would begin again, I guess he would be shocked, at how much and how fast the people have learned. Their general welfare is more important to them and they want to hear how their lot would be improved, because it is only the living that uses good roads. The dead don’t need them. They stay down six feet.

Nigerian Bank Nigeria