Anambra at 25: Rewriting the Anambra narrative

By Edward T. Dibiana

The travel alert by the United States of America to its citizens, over some states in Nigeria, penultimate week, meant different things to different people. To the American citizens living in the country or intending a visit, it was a clear warning on where to avoid.

Until some years ago, Anambra would have featured prominently on the list. That would have not been for nothing. Then, the state was literally a jungle of sort. With petty criminals, kidnappers and other armed gangs virtually holding various communities of the state to ransom, life in Anambra was hellish.

In the process, insecurity became the order of the day. The immediate result was that many businesses went under as prominent residents and citizens of the state, relocated to other parts of the country. Even with spirited efforts of the government of the day to rid the state of crime, the situation was hardly encouraging. It was under that state of uncertainty that a former governor of the state, Peter Obi, raised the poser; “Is Anambra State cursed or are we (indigenes) the cause of our problem”.

That was the ugly state of affairs when Dr. Willie Obiano was inaugurated the governor on March 17, 2014. With a wholly civilian background, many were apprehensive over whether the governor has all it takes to weather the storm of insecurity in the state. But today, the story is different, hence the omission of the state among those declared unsafe by the US Department of State.

This feat however did not come on a platter. Obiano from the onset mapped out a clear agenda to make Anambra crime-free, if his vision of making the state first choice investment destination and a hub for industrialization and commercial activities, was to be realised.

What added weight to this thinking was that since the end of the Civil War, the State had been the theatre of crime and criminality in the South Eastern part of the country.

Obiano spoke it all. “I figured out that there could be no meaningful progress in this state without a successful attack against crime. I knew that no investor would go to a crime-ridden environment. So, we launched an all-out war against kidnappers, armed robbers, drug-dealers and child-traffickers.

“We smashed crime syndicates and pulled down the warehouses used for keeping kidnap victims. We donated smart cars to the police, a gunboat to the Navy and last Christmas, we launched police helicopters to watch over our skies.

“And so, for the first time since the creation of this great state, we made sure that Anambra was effectively covered on the land, in the waters and in the sky! With that effort, we achieved 360 degrees security coverage of the state”, he said.

The result is that Anambra currently ranks among the safest states in the land. Aside Awka, the state capital, other major cities and towns in the state, attest to the new lease of life in Anambra. Even Onitsha that motorists and other road users dreaded both day and night, holds out a different story currently. With traffic lights at strategic sections and well-equipped security officials on watch, criminality in the commercial town has been considerably degraded.

Aside the strategic investment on security and allied engagements, what also seems to be driving the crime rate low in the state, is the unprecedented involvement of the government in capacity building among the citizens. Education, for instance, has been receiving unparalleled attention from the state. Statistics indicate  that in the last two years over 1000 units of 10-classroom blocks have been renovated across the 21 local government areas in the state.

It was also gathered that N733 million was expended on renovation of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) mission schools.  Scholarships, it was also learnt, had been awarded to over 200 students at all levels of education, including children and victims of insurgency in the country. The effect is that the state has consistently remained tops in overall performance in West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) in recent years.

Anakwe Onuorah, Nnewi-based civil engineer, identified the government’s human capital development effort as one that will put the state ahead of its peers, in due course. According to him, the principled investment in education by the current administration and its predecessor, is all that the state needs to harness the latent entrepreneurial energy among its citizens.

“I can attest to the beauty of what the government is doing (investment in education) because I am a beneficiary of the goodness of education. An average Anambra man or woman, is by nature, adventurous and industrious. We dare where others fear. What the state is doing in education now, may not be readily seen by an ordinary eye. But by the time the efforts begin to yield fruits, we shall be the envy of others”, he enthused.

Mrs. Cecilia Okeke, who runs fruit supermarket on Eke Market, Awka, agrees with Onuorah on the silent revolution taking place in the state. “My children are proud beneficiaries of the qualitative education in the state. Unlike before when being indigenes of Anambra attracted jeers to us, we now sing it from the roof tops that we are truly the Light of the Nation, she stated.

Analysts locate the enticing revolution in the state on continuity of the good efforts of the previous government by the Obiano administration. In this instance, even the harshest critics of the administration give it to it that it has not abandoned any of the road projects initiated by the immediate past Peter Obi administration.

If anything, it is rather consolidating on those projects while forging ahead. The three flyovers in Awka speak eloquently of the government’s ambition to transform Anambra with world class infrastructure. It has also built two bridges and a Five-Cell Culvert in Awgbu-Ndiukwuenu-Awa-Ufuma axis. Within the same period, the administration has asphalted over 102 roads.

The applause coming on the way of Anambra on account of its re-engineering process, transcends its shores. In fact, while the state glows, it elicits joy in other parts of Igboland. And this is not without cause.

Among the Igbo, there is a strong attachment to Anambra State. It has not been easy explaining why the essentially internal affairs of the state attract attention of even non-indigenes.

Despite the apparent failure in identifying why Anambra remains dear to the entire Igbo people, the state has always provided the barometer for measuring the tempo of activities in the South East.

In the build up to Nigeria’s flag independence in 1960 for example, apart from a handful of individuals from other neighbouring states, most of the personalities that called the shots from the eastern flank sprang from the present Anambra. There were for instance, the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr. Akwaeke Nwafor-Orizu, both at different times, President of the country and Senate President, respectively. They had younger contemporaries in the late M.C.K Ajuluchukwu, Mbazulike Amaechi (The Boy is good), Igwe Osita Agwuna and Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani. These at the time, sustained the fire for Nigeria’s nationalism.

Even after independence, when the ship of the Nigerian state left no room for the Igbo, the task of charting the path for self-actualization of the people through the instrumentality of the Peoples Republic of Biafra, fell on General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, again form the state. At the height of the civil war, when the federal authorities were looking for an administrator for the East Central State, they settled for late Ukpabi Asika, from Onitsha.

When the Second Republic was being inaugurated and the position of Vice President was zoned to the South East by the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Dr. Alex Ekwueme, from Oko, readily became the choice. While Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, also from the state, emerged the Speaker of the House of Representatives. During General Ibrahim Babangida’s political transition exercise, Agunwa Anaekwe, had emerged Speaker of the House of Representatives from the state.

In the current political dispensation, late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, from Ogbunike, had held the Senate Presidency for the zone at a time.

As eminent Igbo representatives have risen in politics from Anambra, so have they in other fields. In the state, as the saying goes, nothing good lacks.

Incidentally, despite the pleasant array of stars from different fields in the state, Anambra before now, not made serious efforts locating its correct bearing.

It was in this regard that Obi, shortly on assumption of office, had rhetorically asked “Is Anambra cursed or are we the cause?”

But with the turn of events, 25 years after its creation, Anambra appears to be locating its pride of place in Igbo land and Nigeria, at large.

Ibiana is a journalist and media consultant.