Opinion: Anambra Election 2017: A Vote for Osita Chidoka is a Vote for Our Future
“Preparation for the future starts today not tomorrow”
By IKE-ANTHONY ABAELU JNR
No serious government deprive they citizens the opportunity of experiencing a modern world. You don’t hear them say things like my people are not ready for this and that like we are used to in Nigeria. Serious Government does not wait till tomorrow, and serious people does not wait for eternity for the government, they demand for it and continue to persist on their demand until what is due for them is provided. And unfortunately this is one of the major differences between the developed and the undeveloped Nations.
The developed Nations solve the problems of today with today’s solution by trying to be up to date in its functions and operations; especially investing heavily on human capital development for the people to be acquainted with the latest model of governance. But interestingly some of these Nations have even began to experiment the future model with today’s problems.
While some developing Nations like Nigeria have continued to operate with the opaque and archaic model of governance for over 56yrs; solving this today’s problems with 10yrs formula as Osita Chidoka always pin-pointed in his speeches. And not quite long ago Madam Oby Ezekwesili, Prof Charles Soludo and several others also accused the Federal Government of same and till today we are yet to see any single visible policy acceptable to the professional economy managers to confirm that the ship is no longer heading to hit the ice berg. This simply means that it either the leadership in power are not listening or have ulterior motives but time shall time.
But it baffles me and left me in a state of worry that countries like Koreas, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, UAE etc whom we were ahead of in terms of infrastructural and economy development in early 60s have not only overtaken us but we are 30yrs behind them, isn’t it something to be worried about by every reasonable Nigerians?
Isn’t it something to be worried about that a State like Anambra that has produced the best brains we have in this Nation and the State where the highest number of Billionaires who are big time industrialists came from are struggling to generate tangible revenue thus heavily depended on the tax and levies collected from market women, wheel barrow pushers, Okada riders, Bus drivers, Artisans etc to run the State?
For how long would Anambra Government continue to depend on this set of people for growth? Just few days ago I was in someone of office somewhere at Awka; while waiting in the reception, i picked up a Magazine published by an Anambra based media outfit and the first place I opened to read was the story of how the State Government agents invaded a market with all kinds of weapons just to force them to pay N36,000 each for accumulative levies for the past 3yrs. Normally I couldn’t have believed the publication if not that the Government hired revenue consultant confirmed the incident and that made me felt very bad.
My reason was that I have worked in a Micro Finance and other Saving and Loan companies and I know these market women depends on loans between N30,000 and N100,000 with interest rates of between 5% and 15% per month they collects from financial institutions to grow their businesses and also feed their families. The same women were subjected to pay an annual tax of N12,000.00, meaning each year they collected Loans they are forced to pay nothing less than 20% of the loans they borrowed from finance houses with pay the huge interest rates and feed their families to pay Anambra State Government as tax. Tell me why wouldn’t them either owe the over bearing Government or the Bank that borrowed them the money? Was our government not meant to help and uplift the lives of the poor masses? How could a government claimed to be fixing the hospitals for the poor while their actions unconsciously made these poor women automatic patients in the same hospitals? Tell me who survives the mental and emotional tortures caused by debts?
I have never seen where Government grows on impoverishing they citizens; the time to act is now, not tomorrow and with the right policies we can achieve a lot. We must appreciate the fact that in Anambra we have someone like Ike Obosi whose manifesto have identified the fundamental problem and also addressed a way forward. He is among the very few people who understand the basis of our problems and knows what it takes to run a government with a modern tool called ICT. We must not miss this opportunity for any reason.
Moreover we must endeavor to learn from the mistakes of others. Anambra State need a very serious leadership that know what it take to transform our state be one of the best in the world. It’s achievable, it can happen and all it will take is to apply the best model into the system to address and correct numerous discrepancies in the system.
Many had the opportunities in the past to address these fundamental issues including the present government but it appears they were consumed by the system they met in place. It will take a man of integrity, a disciplined man and a man with political will to address this. May I also remind our people that the quality leadership can be determined at the point when prompt decisions are expected to be taken in order to produce effective results, this is the kind of leadership we want in Anambra. The economy of Anambra state cannot grow while we continue to vote in men who will be holed by the system. If we must get the different results this time as we desired then we must vote in the leadership that have the capacity to do things differently.
The time to embrace the modern way of Governance is today not tomorrow and Anambra State has the capacity to set the pace for others to follow. A vote for Osita Chidoka is a Vote for the future.
