Obiano: A Year so Phenomenal!

Governor Obiano and his wife Osodieme acknowledging cheers after being honoured by the people of Aguleri, with them is the Deputy Governor, Dr. Nkem Okeke

As I watched the Twin Towers of the new iconic Aroma Bridge sparkle to life; spraying its dazzling rays into the dusk skies, I knew that Awka would never be the same again. Yes; Awka has been touched by Midas.  

It is a beauty to behold. There is nothing in the experience of the residents with which they could compare the luminous towers jutting into the gathering night. I stood in the middle of the awe-stricken crowd, gazing in wonder. I recalled the shambolic look of the old Aroma Roundabout which was cleared to make way for the majestic flyover on which the twin Towers stood and nodded my head at the transformative power of leadership. It occurred to me just then that no one entrusted with power should leave his environment worse than he met it. In less than two years, Governor Willie Obiano has given Anambra its first home grown landmark!

The iconic Aroma Flyover with its towers

Barely sixteen months ago, Aroma was a tacky roundabout that embodied the ragged dreams of a town’s slow slouch to modernity. But today, Governor Willie Obiano has turned it into a clear statement of intent that points a finger to the Anambra of his dream. As it were, Aroma has become a metaphor for all that Awka should have been in 24 years and a symbol of what Awka will be in the coming years. Not only that, Aroma is also perhaps, the clearest approximation of what it means to build a signature project; something close to Chukwuma Soludo’s idea in his monumental article that swayed the tide against President Jonathan’s second term bid. Aroma is Anambra’s new landmark; heaving with all the possibilities and weight of abundant talents.

Needless to say; 2015 has been a phenomenal year for Willie Obiano. Ironically, it is a year like no other for Nigeria. The massive dip in revenue and the huge spend on the last general elections left the nation bleeding on all pores. When the tide of the elections blew over, what Nigeria had left as an economy was nothing less than a cadaver.

Governor Obiano soaks up blessings and prayers from the Anglican Bishops

Interestingly, 2015 had started for Obiano on a heavily optimistic note. In his New Year address, he had assured Ndi Anambra that their dreams would not crash with the dwindling oil prices. In a voice booming with confidence, Obiano had declared, “with our enormous human and material resources, we shall not surrender our ambitions to dwindling oil prices in the international markets.” In a clear demonstration of his resolve to ensure that the expectations of his people were not cut short by the declining economy, he had followed his assurances up with the announcement of a 15 percent raise in salary for workers. While the applause trailing the salary increase was still ringing, he followed it up with Ozomezina, the hugely symbolic memorial for Igbos who died in the Biafran War. Ozoemezina, Never Again, was the first attempt by any government to bring closure to the war that claimed an estimated two million lives, by according the victims a dignifying burial. In a fitting eulogy to wrap up the memorial, Obiano had intoned; “Today, we honour them in words and deeds. We offer them a final resting place; a sanctuary where their memory will forever ruffle the leaves of time.” Ozoemezina resonated with the Igbo world in its entirety and drew a serious attention to Obiano’s emergence as a conscientious leader.

His grand start to the year received a huge boost in March when the Federation Accounts Sub-Committee on International Public Sector Accounting System (IPSAS) ranked Anambra as the highest in Transparency in governance. This firmly established his open, accountable and transparent approach to governance. But it also gave him the assurance that he was on the right track; that his efforts to run a process-driven government were being noticed somewhere. It also lent him the courage to break out more decisively into unchartered territories. He imposed his full weight on APGA and ran a very impressive election that took even his admirers by surprise. He earned his name – Akpokuedike in gold when he staged a fearsome comeback after the PDP gang-up had manipulated victory off the deserved winners of the National Assembly Elections. Pained by what seemed an obvious rape of the people’s will, Obiano had declared in a state broadcast that “the dubious victory of the PDP in the National Assembly Elections of last Saturday shall not stand!” Consequently, he rose to his feet in the state assembly elections and swept the majority of the seats from the gloating PDP, leaving only crumbs to demonstrate that there should be grace to winning that leaves all parties happy.

Interestingly, while he showed grit and valour as a strong leader, Governor Obiano also revealed a soft and humane side to his person. He was the first to arrive the scene of the petrol tanker accident in Upper Iweka. He was moved to tears just as he was moved to tears on arriving at the Finotel Junction in Awka where a truck had crushed Okechukwu Odenigwe and half of his family as well as the scene of the carnage that claimed several lives in Umuchu. He was never wanting in instances that required firmness or the ones that called for compassion and genuine grief. Perhaps nothing demonstrates his connectedness to the people better than his wholesale donation of his salaries to the underprivileged in March, 2015. He did that long before President Buhari and his Vice had enough presence of mind to accept a slash in their salaries as a necessary sacrifice to reflect the slide in the nation’s economic fortunes. Obiano however outpaced his peers in compassionate leadership when he granted amnesty to 25 prisoners to mark Nigeria’s Independence and handed each ex-convict N1m cheque to help them regain a foothold in the society. It was a gesture that dripped with kindness and a deep understanding of the fact that sometimes some journeys do not end the way we plan them. It was also a gesture that showed him as having a good grasp of the software of governance; those little things that humanize leadership.

Obiano’s skills in certain aspects of the intricacies of statecraft were seriously tested by the nocturnal transfer of 47 dreaded inmates of Boko Haram to Ekwulobia Prisons in the last week of June this year. The presence of these agents of instantaneous death in Igbo land and a few kilometres away from Adazi Nnukwu where 12 of their victims were freshly buried had all the ingredients that would make an inferno. But Obiano deftly deployed unusual craft and tact in handling the matter; working mostly behind the scene and making guarded statements until the storm blew away. It was a harrowing period when a less astute leader would have buckled under the weight of emotional pressure from his people who saw the transfer of the murderers of their kit and kin to their domain as the very height of provocation.

Obiano also turned his back on being ordinary when he took his most rabid adversaries by surprise and urged an audience made up of the most distinguished citizens of the state to give a standing ovation to his predecessor, former governor Peter Obi. He did this at the Interactive Forum and at a time when the ego war between the two great sons of the state was at its bitterest stage. It was a time when a less restrained personage would never have thought of anything like that, sweating as he was under a barrage of virulent attacks on his person and his family, ostensibly orchestrated by the man he had set out to lionize.  

Beyond the symbolism of little acts, 2015 has also been phenomenal to Obiano in the area of concrete achievements. He tightened the noose on security with a hugely successful Regional Security Summit and launched 25 American style patrol cars for the police. For the first time in the history of the state and its neighbours, this Christmas season, a police helicopter hovered over Anambra skies, ferreting out crucial intelligence for the patrol team on the ground. This strategy made for a comprehensive coverage of the state. Obiano also responded swiftly to emergencies, sealing up huge craters created by erosion on federal highways in the state and partially opening his monumental flyovers in Awka to ease traffic congestion in strategic locations in the Yuletide season.

An array of the Special Patrol Cars donated to tighten security in Anambra State

Expectedly, his efforts were fully noticed. Not only was he repeatedly singled out for special praises at the Federal Executive Council meetings by former President Jonathan and current President Buhari, Obiano has also been showered with awards. In addition to being named the Governor of the Year by The Sun Publishing Limited, The Association of Primary School Head Teachers of Nigeria (AOPSHON) also named him the Best Primary Education Friendly Governor of the Year, 2015. Before that, the Catholic Laity Council of Nigeria had also honoured him with the outstanding title of Duke.

A most haunting Poem

 I'm Bound to this Land by Blood

By Olu Oguibe I am bound to this land by blood That's why my vision is blurred I am rooted in its soil And its streams flood my veins I smell the sweat of its men And the million feet that plod The dust of its streets Leave their prints on my soul I have walked the footpaths of this land Climbed the snake-routes of its hills I have known the heat of its noon And that in the fields where men toil till dusk I have known the faces their creases I have seen pain engraved on the foreheads of many I have heard their agony I have cried so often with broken men And peered into a million faces blank Faces without bodies bodies without faces The owners of nothing breakers of stone The owners who are owned I have known them all I have heard the wailing of a million I have stood in the crowd where men Mixed their sweat and wiped blood From their brows cursing silently I have stood in the middle of silent whirlwinds And their heat has left its mark I bear the mark of the masses on my brow And if I curse If I raise this single voice In the midst of dust and curse If I lend a tiny voice to The rustle of this crowd It's because I am bound to this land I am bound to the dying mother the widow The man with a weight on his loins I am tethered to their moan they are my own I belong with they who have no voice They who trudge outside the gate Those who sigh in their hearts Who only shake their heads And if I sing not of roses and rivers It's because I see rivers of blood I look through the holler of the crowd And I see blood on the ground I see blood on the rockslabs I look over the mangrove swamp And I walk through fields of groundnut And I see nothing but blood I see blood in the face of the farmer On the palm of the school child I see blood on the statue Of the Immaculate Mother I walk through the streets and I see puddles of blood I see blood on your shoes on your underwear I see blood on the hands of men And if I raise my voice to holler It is because the grasses wither in this deluge of blood Fishes float on their bellies with their eyes covered By the sanguine flood My verse spreads ungathered In this spill of purple Mine is the cry of a ram tethered To the slaughterslab There are no petals soft No yellow centres No polished pebble melodies Piled into song My words are rough-hewn from These rocks where men toil The plaintive voices of children The plod of prisoners feet The curses of the peasant woman Are the wattle of my song My pictures are the colour of dust And I sing only of rust I have swum in the flood And I know better For I am bound to this land By blood.

Enduring images of 2015

Chijioke Amu-Nnadi and Chuma Nwokolo in search of yesterday

Root of the Matter: Chike Okagbue Returns in a Riveting Book

By James Eze

This is a book of legacies, timed to coincide with the tenth year anniversary of the death of Chief Chike Okagbue (Ezennia).  It is a special tribute collection condensed from the reflections of people most affected by Ezennia’s phenomenal life.  It seeks to uncover, from family members, associates and eyewitnesses; the forces that propelled Chike Okagbue to his outstanding achievements in business, politics and service to humanity.

It is a great story told with disarming simplicity and a rare ability to cherry pick the essentials. Like most publications that fall under the coffee table category, the aim is to inform and entertain in as few words as possible.  Here, there is no luxury of the long, windy narrative, of the endless digressions that too often test the patience of the hasty reader. Here too, the author turns the craft of word economy into a new art, chiselling out spare lines that carry enough meat to fulfil the twin missions of education and entertainment with each devastating stroke.

But who is the author and why should we read him? Well, this book if from the desk of James Atah, editor of the African History Makers Series. Atah comes almost fully made in the business, having produced important biographical works on the Chief TOS Benson, Amb. Mathew Mbu and Chief Chidi Anyaegbu of Chisco Group. He has also been head of the Tri-Atlantic Books biographical team that churned out historical books on African legends like the Great Zik of Africa, Aminu Kano, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Asagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and other. Atah has a reputation for taking on giants and humanizing them with a stroke of genius.  

   

So, as leads us to Chike Okagbue in Root of the Matter, we are offered fulsome glimpses of an ordinary life led in extraordinary ways. Like a show-reel, each fragment offers us a view into the rich tapestry of Okagbue’s everyday life; each scene throbs with memories that resonate through the ages. We are forcibly drawn into the narrative as we respond to every twitch of his nerves as he is drawn into the swirl of the daily experience of life among his people. The circumstances of his birth and the challenges of growing up in the countryside, isolated from the amenities that made for elevated living even in the colonial 30s are painted with shimmering clarity.  With each stroke of his pen, the writer offers us a fresh pair of eyes to visualize Ezennia’s colossal life from the simplified prism of everyday living. Nothing is dramatized to comical proportion; nothing too, is lost to chance or lack attention. In a seemingly uncanny way, the author adroitly ensures that every line adds to the spell-binding narrative.

And this peculiar attention to creating believability is the strength of the book. The humble beginnings of the subject and the frightening circumstances that almost eclipsed his childhood and early education are presented with telling poignancy.  The loss of one’s parents and the ease with which it could cut short a dream and the obligations of the traditional society in raising a child; are all brought back with tingling nostalgia.  

It must be said though, that there is something inspiring in the author’s masterful presentation of a series of interlocking events and actions in a gripping flow that mirrors aspects of the personal experience of the reader; giving us enough nudge to identify ourselves in the social milieu in which the subject led out his extraordinary life.    

The import of a work of this kind for many readers around the world nailed to inertia by overwhelming odds and the fear of constant failure is that it can still be done; that it is possible to rise above the jagged edges of grinding poverty and build a multibillion Naira enterprise. And this is no tall tale!

The loads of anecdotes, parables, illustrations and real life experiences recounted in this slim volume will surely leave the reader thankful for a surfeit of truly entertaining and motivational material.

The most interesting thing about Root of the Matter is that there is something for every reader to take away; a fruitful search in a large forest, teeming with brilliant ideas, imageries and symbolisms. Root of Matter is something to look forward to!

Obiano Storms Nnewi Fire Disaster Scene

The governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano Thursday cut short his scheduled activities for the day and rushed over to the scene of an explosion at an LPG plant in the industrial city of Nnewi that left eight bodies charred beyond recognition and several others wounded.

Governor Obiano addressing the crowd at the scene of the gas explosion in Nnewi. With him is Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, the Obi of Onitsha.

The Christmas Eve disaster started at about midday in a facility owned by Intercorp Oil Limited, a subsidiary of Chicason Group that is located along Onitsha – Okigwe Expressway and quickly spread to nearby houses.

Traumatised by the wreckage and the ruins he saw on the scene of the fire incident, Governor Obiano expressed his deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the incident, urging them to take heart.

The entrance to the Gas Plant

“I am deeply worried by what has happened here. It is very tragic. It is sad that this sort of thing should happen in a season of celebration but God knows best. We must all bear this great loss with gratitude to God who knows best,” Governor Obiano remarked.

The governor assured that his administration would do everything within its power to ensure that people who sustained various degrees of burns and other injuries from the fire would be given the best medical care available to forestall the possibilities of further loss of life.

Another cut showing the entrance and the charred remains of automobiles

Assuring that his government would write off the medical bills of all the people undergoing treatment from the accident, Governor Obiano also stated his intention to probe the incident in order to ascertain the cause of the explosion and the resultant inferno.

Let’s Unite Nigeria with Love – Obiano

Chief Willie Obiano, Governor of Anambra State

The governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano has urged Nigerians to strengthen the bonds of the nation’s unity with love this Christmas.

In a Special Christmas Message from Awka, the state capital, Governor Obiano observed that the feast of Christmas offers Nigerians a chance to reflect on the imperatives of national unity and the need to reach out and touch one another with love.

He observed that Christmas reminded him of the APGA slogan of “Be they brother’s keeper,” as it emphasis brotherly love, peace and sharing of gifts in the spirit of love that Christ exemplified in his salvific role to mankind and maintained that only love would help the country to overcome the many challenges that beset her at the moment.

“Christmas reminds us of the overriding importance of love in the affairs of mankind. There is no greater act of love known to man than the birth of Jesus Christ. That is why Christians across the world use the feast of Christmas to reflect on God’s love for His Children and seek new ways to heal our world with love,” Governor Obiano reflected.

According to him, “Nigerians should use the opportunity of Christmas to reflect on our national unity and seek new approaches and solutions to the numerous problems that beset us as a nation. If we seek hard enough, we will all come to the conclusion that most of the challenges we have with regards to unity can be solved with love. With love, we can consign our differences to the margins of our existence.”

Reflecting on the many difficulties the country has faced in recent times, Governor Obiano observed that the incendiary rhetoric between Nigeria’s many ethnic nationalities and the frequent bloodbath occasioned by religious and tribal hostilities would all take the backseat if Nigerians choose love as their defining ethos.

“We must replace the language of war with the language of LOVE. We must reach out and touch one another. We must demonstrate love for one another, for family, for friends and for Nigeria. That, to me, is the message of Christmas,” the governor declared.

The governor observed that this year’s Christmas was a special one for Anambra State because of the mass return of its prominent citizens who now feel safe enough to come home and re-unite with their families and friends in the spirit of the season because Anambra is the nation’s safest state.

The governor however warned Ndi Anambra to be careful while celebrating with their loved ones so that there would be no loss of life to over-speeding vehicles and drunk drivers. 

“We want everybody to enjoy this Christmas. This Christmas should be one of the best for so many reasons. We have made enough arrangements for security. We have a helicopter keeping watch over our skies and sophisticated security cars prowling our roads and highways. So, Anambra is safe and the people should enjoy themselves,” he declared.

Obiano Partially Opens of Aroma Flyover, Launches Aerial Helicopter Surveillance

 (L-R) Chief Willie Obiano, Governor of Anambra State, his wife Chief Mrs Ebelechukwu and Dr Nkem Okeke, Deputy Governor during the partial opening of Aroma Flyover

 (L-R) Chief Law Chinwuba, Commissioner for Works, Dr. Nkem Okeke, Deputy Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, Governor and his Wife, Chief Mrs. Ebelechukwu

 The Special Surveillance Helicopter hovering over Aroma Bridge

 The Governor's motorcade driving through the iconic Aroma Twin Towers

 Mrs. Ngozi Ossy-Agbata, Uche Nwora, Emeka Ozumba, James Eze and Primus Odili

 The Special Surveillance Helicopter hovers between the Twin Towers

 The iconic Twin Towers of Aroma from a distance

 Another view of the Twin Tower

Chief Willie Obiano, his wife Ebelechukwu and Dr. Nkem Okeke, the Deputy

The governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano has partially opened the iconic Aroma Flyover in Awka the state capital to commuters in order to ease up the heavy traffic congestion usually expected in the area during the Yuletide season.

Performing the partial opening on Monday, governor Obiano announced that the bridge was about 95 percent completed. He explained that he was opening it to ease the flow of traffic in the heart of Awka during the Christmas period and that it would be closed down after the season to ensure a proper completion of work.

Governor Obiano also performed a partial opening of the Amawbia Bridge in the Awka Capital Territory to facilitate the flow of traffic.

The governor used the opportunity to announce to Ndi Anambra that he had engaged the services of a special police helicopter to carry out aerial surveillance of the entire state during the Yuletide season to tighten the screws on security in the state.

The helicopter surveillance team which hovered above the Aroma Bridge while the governor performed the partial opening of the bridge is expected to feed intelligence gathered from the skies to the Special Police Patrol Cars on the ground in order to ensure a comprehensive coverage of the state.

“We want to give Ndi Anambra a crime-free Christmas. With the Helicopter Squad in the air and the Special Patrol Cars on the ground, Anambra shall continue to maintain its position as the safest state in Nigeria,” Governor Obiano enthused.

It would be recalled that barely a fortnight ago, Obiano had donated 25 Special American-style Patrol Cars to the State command of the Nigerian police to enable it sustain the crackdown on criminals in the state.

The Police was also equipped with Speed Guns to track down over-speeding vehicles and Alcohol Testing Devices to checkmate drunk driving. 

Frightening Images…

These images should frighten any air traveller in Nigeria who is familiar with our recent aviation history. How I wish the images were actually photo-shopped or manipulated by mischief makers to make us laugh. Sadly, they look too real to be the work of some crazy prankster. And that is rather frightening.

After years of successive air crashes and the chilling aftermath, Nigeria had momentarily seemed to be making a clear break with the usual slapdash approach to safety in the aviation sector. Ironically, it took the severely vilified Stella Odua to give Nigeria what looked like the beginnings of a modern aviation industry. Under her watch, our airports took a new look. Things got slightly better under Osita Chidoka as we saw some serious moves to enforce safety regulations especially with the down-grading of Asaba Airport.

However, as these images show, we are on a backward slide. God save all air travellers this Yuletide!  

What does Christmas mean to them?

These are children in rural Nigeria in the Internet age...