By Ejike Anyaduba
It is sometimes said that Anambra politics is a peculiar brand that hardly exists elsewhere.
Its unusualness derives from two distinct characteristics. One, it is capital intensive. Two, it is fractious, and can be potty when inclined.
But in all its irregular beats, it does not fail to requisition help from within its fold which, in the Anambra spirit, is rendered unstintingly.
Not thinking differently perhaps, Chukwuma Soludo, the intrepid economist and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), urged against the tendencies, advocating rather for new elite cohesion and consensus in what he called statesmanship politics.
He enjoined the motley of aspirants to the November governorship election not to waste their resources, but to deploy them to the burgeoning startup companies and help create value-adding jobs in the state.
“Can we then implore most of the contestants to rather deploy the billions of naira they would soon waste on the campaign trail into building medium scale industries in the state?” he implored.
Before this exhortation evaporates into a puff of illusive smoke or becomes a blathering topic of a politician on the stump or an agendum for others in endless nocturnal meetings, it is important to flesh out some details.
One, politics in Anambra is no small business. The volume of cash deployed in the venture (a greater percentage of which is invested outside the state) if ploughed into the economy would redefine the Anambra narrative.
Perhaps investment in the state as well as its exploits in security, agriculture, education, infrastructure, public utilities, health, and youth empowerment, among others, would have recorded huge success.
By now the Willie Obiano administration should have advanced to finer aspects of governance and not to be grappling with opening the state up to investors.
Two, the I-can-do-it spirit of the Igbo man has greater expression in Anambra than any of the five core Igbo states. Virtually every well heeled man or woman in Anambra is deluded with the idea of gubernatorial grandeur.
Unfortunately, nothing, including stark defeat, deters the resolve to heat the political space. Consequently, the state is left to bear the brunt.
It is against this background that the call for statesmanship politics becomes apt.
It serves the state and ndi Anambra better to appraise the Obiano administration and give support where necessary so that it will complete the task at hand.
This, perhaps, is the better way to get the state achieve greatness. As it is, everybody in the state, including known opposition, cannot disclaim the many achievements of the government.
How it severed, in less than three months, the dead hand of insecurity and brought economic prosperity. How in three years investment in the state tripled to $5.2 billion.
How the wheel of governance has continued to run smoothly amid so many elsewhere that have grounded to a halt.
How road network in Anambra is about the best, if not the best, in the country. How these roads are duly interspersed with bridges.
How outside the three flyovers in Awka the speed with which agrarian and oil communities hitherto separated by water and deep gully erosions have been connected by well constructed bridges.
How impossible it is to recount in detail some institutional changes made by the government since inception, which carefully insulated the state from recession and pushed it up the ladder of development.
Perhaps it is to sustain the changes which have bolstered growth that Soludo, a no less equal competitor to the governorship position, decided against any ambition just to support good governance.
He knows that any change in leadership will easily upend all what has been achieved. He is not deluded that the aspirants would offer anything new.
Soludo knows that the economic miracle some of them promise can be achieved by investing in the state economy and not until they assume the office of the governor.
It is no longer news that there has been a burst of activities (economic cum social) in the last three years of Obiano which positively altered the value of life and property in Anambra.
At any rate the population of the state has increased in the last three years just as the value of landed property has made some uptick.
These things can only get better through sustained effort and not by any miracle or by changing a successful general in the course of war. It is said that “continuous effort and not strength or intelligence unlocks potentials”.
So far as the effort is concerned the state has gained a lot of mileage. It is celebrated and coveted with equal passion. It is therefore unwise to contemplate change in the middle of transformation.
No reasonable person will be willing to see such great effort reduced to naught by unbridled ambition.
