One man whose name has been making the rounds in Nigerian politics is Governor Willie Obiano, the present governor of Anambra State.
For what it’s worth, I think the former banker now turned governor has been a recurring decimal in the news lately following his many achievements, sorry, I sometimes have this habit of undervaluing matters, for Willie has surely worked wonders in Anambra and not achievements as I blithely stated before since achievements are for ordinary governors.
Since his assumption of office as the helmsman of my state, Governor Willie has been dogged by one controversy after another. This never ending cycle of controversies have naturally come not because the governor naturally courts them, no! These controversies have being made manifest because the man has become a worker of humoungous wonders in the state. I explain.
Here is a governor that believes in the monopoly of government positions and portfolios by his kith and kin who happen to come from Aguleri, the same town with the governor. As a matter of fact, the term “Agulerisation “has become one of the official policies of the Willie Obiano administration. This naturally would not have been a problem if Anambra was mainly constituted by the Aguleri people but given the fact that the Anambra State is home to 21 local government areas,177 towns and numerous communities, a situation where over 40 percent of all appointments have been allotted to Aguleri smacks of crass nepotism and a growing neglect of the principle of equity required in a polity such as Anambra. However, we ought not to blame Obiano, he just believes that the best brains are found in his hometown of Aguleri. It doesn’t just end there, ndi Anambra have witnessed a diversion of contracts and projects meant for the state to Aguleri, these are projects naturally meant to be spread over a number of towns for widespread development of the state, but no, the governor in his wisdom has decided to site them in his hometown alone. A clear example is the diversion of the Anambra State Universal Basic Education Board, ASUBEB’s 96 contracts to Aguleri alone. I can go on and on but for time.
Another wonder is the alleged squandering of the commonwealth of ndi- Anambra left for him by past administrations amounting to #76billion. This is at a time when his fellow governors who succeeded their predecessors complained about meeting an empty treasury. Now, much as he has tried through vile propaganda to convince the people that he never met such an amount in the coffers of the state, onlookers have wondered why the long silence before issuing the denial of the existence of such an amount. Sincerely speaking, N75Bn is not some esusu collection that cannot be tracked or verified in a very short time and for Obiano to have woken up two years into his administration singing a new song entirely different from what was sung in the near past raises questions on Obiano’s propriety as a person. Likewise, when we remember how his administration spent resources on frivolities such as 100 days in office, Christmas decorations, the purchase of two gold beds, musical equipments, kitchen sets from America, the increase in salaries of commissioners and special advisers as well as the horde employed by his administration,( over 400 political appointees)and the governor’s hard earned fame for revelry, it therefore leaves little to wonder at where the N75bn went.
Let me berth a while on the three fly- overs constructed by Governor Obiano in Awka, Anambra State. I will give kudos to him as the fly overs are necessary to halt or abate the traffic gridlock suffered along the Onitsha- Enugu Expressway. However, the controversy here stems from the fact that the value of the contract for the flyovers suffered at different occasions variations costing the state a whooping 10 to 15 Bn Naira extra for a project that was poorly constructed in the end, creating new gridlocks for road transport users. Proper project management requires astute use of resources, and a project that suffers such variations in a short span of a year and six months begets the knowledge of improper planning, waste and a corrupt mismanagement of funds, a far cry from what we did obtain in the last eleven years.
The state’s new level of indebtedness is another wonder featured in the Obiano administration, where a state that has been the only debt free state for years suddenly joins the league of indebted states to the tune of 60,781,525.58 Bn Dollars. In line with the thinking of economists, owing debts is not the problem, it is what those debts have been channeled to, what programs, projects and services have these loans gone into? Sadly, the utility of these loans cannot be presently valued when measured alongside development in the state. Another wonder!