The job of governance requires records which are critical to continuum of catering for the needs of any electorate. It is not ad-hoc or whimsical. It is not conceived on a flight of fancy basis. It is not based on own preferences. It should be based on studied short, medium and long term needs and aspirations of an electorate. Governor Rochas Okorocha’s four-year term in governorship falls short of data which a successor would direly need to key on to welfare of the people which is the supreme essence of governance.
For over three years, we have been on spontaneity of projects that are not studied. He conceives of projects and embarks on them without feasibility and viability studies which should precede public projects. Feasibility and viability studies match resources with goals desired and provide quantitative analysis of the impact of projects.
I am not aware after three solid years that any concept of development paradigm during Rochas’ regime has been a product of studies of its impact on Imo populace. This scenario could have passed in colonial Nigeria when the objective of the colonists was to exploit our resources for the benefit of Britain. It did not happen even then when civilisation had not yielded painstaking studies to ensure that appropriate yields in terms of capital growth, sustainable revenue projections and social welfare in long term perspective of a people precede investments of public funds. No speeches that are written as guide for inquisitive future entrants into governance have been contrived through Okorocha’s administration so far.
Imo consequently has assumed the nature of wild cat identification and implementation of projects without social responsibility and weighting of priorities of a people. To drive this point home, Owerri and other zonal cities have been developed with a purpose to garnish the landscape with stupendous land development schemes aimed at glamour rather than benefit for the people. No job creation goals are visible. In fact, production centres that would have created jobs have suffered on the altar of glittering landscapes that have no coefficients in terms of aggregate improvement in standards of living of the majority.
Okorocha seems to believe that development is coterminous with ultra-modern structures fitted out with space for public events with modern lighting and services but which do not translate into substantial welfare of the electorate. One can score him favourably in terms of roads: rural areas have been connected with one another and thus lifting substantial elements of hardship off the people. But the roads have been contrived hurriedly with little attention to endurance of road substructure in view. It does not appear that tenders for roads constructed followed painstaking design that should accommodate weathering and density of traffic. And density of traffic especially when axle weights of different vehicles have not been taken in during design is bound to increase with our pretences at development.
Development is a continuum of figuring out needs and aspirations of a people, of factoring needs and aspirations into development plans in short, medium and long term perspectives and of painstakingly providing for services that meet wholesome needs and aspiration in same time perspectives. It should take someone who has respect for professional counsel to conceive and evolve projects of the quality that minister unto the increasing needs and aspirations of a people. It is not gambling or posturing to win glamorous approbation. It should be loaded with professional inputs. It is based on priorities that will not allow any sector of human development to suffer.
Human development, which is one pillar of public sector management, has suffered neglect, even with the granting of free education with heavy dependence on import of furniture and equipment which backward integration considerations should compel energisation of productive sectors to cater for educational needs from home turf, to create employment, income and more capital for our future.
As it is, we have provided income for exporting countries with nothing to show for our huge imports in the service of free education. No stimulus for local production is available on the landscape. Politicians of contemporary mode miss the point completely. It is for the sake of our future that it has become necessary to lay these points down, so that full appreciation of failures may be stimulated in the minds of seekers of political office who only see fripperies of power rather than demands of an electorate for welfare and real progress.
Employment centres are private and public sector-fed. Public sector provides the enabling environment for private sector to latch on and provide employment. Very little of this has happened. Erstwhile production centres have atrophied out of existence. Shoe industry and Adapalm – which marked out golden days of Michael Okpara’s regime – are now dead for state trifling with public resources, with mania for marketing public interests to private entities. Avutu Poultry conceived for catering for poultry needs of the Igbo is under revived. Education has not improved in qualitative terms. This is a disastrous trend. Stimuli for local production of even food are lacking. We feed from import from our neighbours. We have heard of Land Army just as we heard of Oguta Wonderlake during Governor Ikedi Ohakim’s regime. Nothing on the ground matches the stridence of praises for rescue or restoration of the glory of that natural endowment at Oguta. Grants from the federal government are not matched, so farmers have no source of capital to remain let alone improve farm capital.
Anyone who steps into Okorocha’s shoes will run a gauntlet of woes to be able to address the needs of Ndimo after his tenure. Records with which to begin prioritisation will be lacking. The new governor may have to commission a study to assess afresh needs of the electorate before assumption of power in meaningful terms. These are professional statements. Politicians should read them as such. The world has left the age of whims in leadership far behind.