By Charles Onunaiju
HE is certainly not a demagogue and would not likely cart away the first price in a competition for oratory but his demeanor does not betray a man who is having fun with public office and enjoying the pomp and paraphernalia of power. He seemed clearly bearing the burdens of high office. To confess, I don’t know his political conviction, if he has any at all, but what is evidently discernible is that he is exerting his utmost best, to use public office to serve the public and even ensuring that the least influential and most vulnerable get their dues. Or how do we explain why most of his peers can find money to pay the humongous allowances of political appointees, contractors, traditional rulers and other sundry political hacks but gleefully declare themselves insolvent, when it comes to paying the pittances that ordinary workers take home?
Governor Obiano has not done anything extraordinary, when he ensures that ordinary public sector workers get their monthly pay as at when due and pensioners did not have to surmount a bureaucratic bottleneck to get their entitlements. But, because these most vulnerable but productive sectors of our society are the buff of official neglect and political buck-passing in many other places, Governor Obiano’s diligence in discharging this routine but onerous responsibility cannot be treated with levity.
That the Anambra state public sector workers are among the few of their peers in other states with guaranteed monthly salary, tenure security and even assured retirement benefits, make the author of rare industrial harmony in the state, a compulsive candidate for leadership continuity.
Ndi Anambra, ordinarily indigenous people that would not let good thing pass them by easily, would most likely appeal to hold on to governor Willie Obiano. All those with him in the race are eminent sons and daughters of Anambra state with distinguished records of service in various capacities but in the governance of Anambra, Governor Obiano is tested and has proved a capable hand. As Anambra state is a project in progress, Governor Obiano’s current distinguished array of political rivals for the top job will have their day, after all, four years is a very short time in the life of a state.
As Anambra under Obiano and even under his eminent predecessors has thrived in industrial peace, so has the state also soared in creating the enabling security infrastructure for public service to perform optimally and business to flourish.
Onitsha, former Eastern Nigerian equivalent of the Bermuda triangle, notorious for crimes and crisis may not be an oasis of tranquility and peace, but is no longer the dreaded enclave, where most travelers to the Eastern region desperately try to avoid.
A friend from Anambra State told me that most of the outlaws and trouble-makers are from the zone of Governor Obiano and that he could easily subdue them or persuade them to give up crime. I have absolutely no way of verifying this seemingly unverifiable claim but even if it has one percent validity, it makes a good case and even common sense, why Ndi-Anambra should hold on to Governor Obiano at least in the next four years. However, it is also well known that his predecessors, including Mr. Peter Obi, did great work in creating the existing security infrastructure, which Obiano has considerably improved and sustained.
Security of life and property is the cardinal and most defining contract between any government and its people and governors who take this aspect of their jobs very seriously are also to be taken seriously by their people. Other candidates for the top job in Anambra State might have their ideas about how to sustain or even deepen the current security framework of the state, which is evidently working, but a gamble on experimentation, when the existing framework is working, cannot be properly advised. Governor Obiano is undoubtedly in a better position to sustain and even deepen the existing security framework at least for the next four years.
There is absolutely nothing in the above analysis to suggest that Governor Obiano is indispensable, at least not for a state with some of the best minds and astute performers, but given the context of the current contest for the top job in the state, he is the most tested and the most proven of all his peers in the political fray.
Since the governorship contest took off in earnest, there have been several claims and counter-claims of performance or non-performance by the incumbent and his challengers and because these are not verifiable at least by this writer, I decline competence to comment fairly and responsibly on them. I mostly dwell on facts that are in the public domain.
Governor Obiano appears reclusive, thoughtful and austere. In my view, these are actual qualities of a leader, who defines priorities beyond his own political survival but on the strategic engagement with the people through service delivery on the most essentials and to the largest number of people. There is no evidence that he roams around Abuja or the rest of the world at the slightest pretense or carves statutes of controversial outgoing African leaders.
The political choice of Ndi-Anambra as they go out to elect their Governor for the next four years is stark: to continue on a path that is not broken or to start on a new path with all the uncertainties that it entails.
However, to re-elect Governor Willie Obiano for the next four years, does not in any way suggest that Ndi-Anambra should go to sleep or rest on their oars. They must continue to hold Governor Willie Obiano and his team accountable, reminding him constantly that what goes for his achievements in the past four years are mere routines that responsible governments deliver elsewhere in the world and that he should, therefore, put on his thinking cap and evolve strategies to deliver beyond more of the same things. However, why more of the same thing matters, is because in most states in Nigeria, including in the neighborhood of Anambra State, it is patently a scarce commodity.
Onunaiju is the Director, Centre for China Studies, (CCS) Utako, Abuja.