Anambra: Sustaining growth amid political rancor

He sauntered into the venue a clear one and half hour late – like most Nigerian politicians and VIPs who think only less-important people keep to time – and waved to acknowledge cheers from the audience. His steps were well measured and his shoulders some inches higher than normal.  One gets the immediate feeling the appearance is practiced to convey a picture of self-confidence and self-assurance. The occasion was a Distinguished Guest Lecture Series of the School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos.

The guest lecturer was the governor of Anambra State, Chief, Dr. Willie Obiano. The introductions done with, an official of the Anambra State Government grabbed the microphone and invited the governor to the podium for his citation to be read.

The title of his lecture “Sustaining the Legacy of Growth and Development in Anambra State” was apt. One will not know whether the governor chose the title himself or it was foisted on him by the organisers of the lecture.

It was an acknowledgement that there was growth and development in Anambra State before he came into office sixteen months ago, and his major task as governor is to sustain that effort. That is reassuring.

The governor himself succinctly captured the situation. “Before APGA wrestled power from PDP in Anambra State in 2006, the state was bursting at the seams with controversy. There were stories of the kidnap of a sitting governor, of violent eruptions that led to the burning down of public buildings and several other symptoms of a dysfunctional state. Save for a handful of roads, Ndi Anambra had no serious intimations of the transformational power of a democratic government.”

By applying what he termed “the APGA model of governance”, the process of re-imagining Anambra state began because, as he argued, “the strongest nation on earth is the imagination“ since logic will only get one from points A to B, but imagination will take one everywhere.

So after the years of the locust, APGA had to re imagine the state. It was safe to term his predecessor’s achievements as the “APGA model of governance” since, to his chagrin, Peter Obi has ported to the PDP and the PDP may now want to appropriate his achievements as governor. For Obiano therefore, it is wise to emphasise the party and not the person – and that makes perfect sense.

The governor proceeded to give a detailed account of what he’s done to sustain growth and development in Anambra State.  Everything, according to him, is anchored on an economic blueprint he calls the “Four Pillars of Development” namely: Agriculture, Trade and Commerce, Industrialisation, and Oil and Gas.

These are areas where the state has comparative advantage and sectors where investors could easily be attracted into.

It is also to his credit that his administration has been able to increase the state’s monthly internally generated revenues from the N500 million he inherited from his predecessor to N1.5 billion.

It is also heart-warming that he is not content with that achievement and set a target of reaching N3 billion in the nearest future.

Basking in that euphoria of achievements, he also announced a great initiative of his government – the creation of a one-stop investment boutique – the Anambra State Investment Promotion and Protection Agency (ANSIPPA) for Anambra state, and the news that ANSIPPA had attracted investments valued at $2.4 billion in the past sixteen months.

Recently as the prices of oil started falling in the international market and the distributable federal allocation began to decline, states began to find it difficult to pay their workers, with some states owing upwards of twelve months’ salaries.

Aware of this trend, Obiano mentioned repeatedly that he is not owing salaries and is even increasing the salaries of civil servants at a time other states were finding it difficult to pay salaries.

Hear him: “We also sought to win by giving governance a human face; clearing pensions owed senior citizens and responding to the cries of the civil servants with a 15 percent increase in salaries at a time that oil prices were crashing and states were grappling with the reality of shrinking revenues.”

Obiano however may be benefitting from his predecessors’ (Peter Obi) astute management of state resources as he did not inherit any debt from Obi but only huge savings and investments totaling over N86 billion.

Details from his predecessor’s handover note indicate that as at March 14, 2014 – the last day of Obi’s administration, the state had: N27 billion in local investments, N26.5 billion in foreign currency  investments, N28.2 billion as certified state/MDAs balances, and N10 billion as Federal Government’s Approved refunds. The liabilities inherited (which included March salaries, pension and gratuity as well as approved certificates of already executed projects) stood at N5 billion only.

The net balance in savings and investments was N86.7 billion.

In an era where most of the governors inherit empty treasuries, huge salaries, gratuity and pension liabilities, and huge local and foreign loans tied to the states’ future federal allocations, Obi showed exemplary leadership by ensuring that he did not pass over an bank loan, bonds, or liabilities in salaries and executed contracts to his successor, firmly placing the state on a sound financial footing and making it possible for the state to remain solvent in an era where most states in Nigeria are going bankrupt.

One can only hope Obiano can continue in that tradition.

Obiano had earlier complained at the beginning of the lecture that the greatest obstacle to governance in Igbo land and more particularly in Anambra State is the spate of political rancor and desperation that do not end even with the conclusion of elections.

According to him “any keen observer of modern Nigerian politics can easily testify that nowhere is the famous rivalry in contemporary democracy as fierce as the South Eastern states and nowhere in the South East is it more intense than in Anambra state…”

“I found it hard to accept that a state so gifted in nearly every aspect of human endeavor has been blighted by lack of internal coherence and unanimity of purpose for so long. I found it difficult to believe that we could harness our individual success stories into one mighty success story for the group.” Buttressing this point with his only reference to his predecessor, He said he still shudders whenever he thinks of the titanic battles, the impeachment wars that his predecessor had to fight to remain in power before launching the APGA model of governance which has liberated Anambra people from the clutches of bad governance and set them on a path of sustainable growth and development, a legacy he said his administration is not only sustaining but improving upon.

He also believes that the reason for this is because Anambra people “are highly enlightened and [thus] not easy to lead.”

Clearly, the state needed some level of political cohesion to make progress. This led the governor to appeal to politicians in his state to try to put aside the bitter politics and work together to develop the state once elections are over and the winner is sworn into office.

The history of Anambra State, especially since 1999 as the governor himself acknowledged, has been replete with titanic political battles that left no room for purposeful governance or development.

Between 1999 and 2006 Mbadinuju and Emeka Offor, and later Chris Ngige and the Uba brothers were engaged in deadly political and physical battles over who controlled the state and the people of the state were the real losers.

Government properties were freely destroyed, governance was completely stalled and a reign of terror was visited on the state during that period.

One therefore hopes Obiano will focus on governance and not be distracted by the states culture of political rancor.

Christopher Akor