Towards post-election consolidation of Anambra’s current Solutions

WITH the general elections and activities marking Gov. Chukwuma Soludo’s  one year in office  now over,  attention quickly shifts to ensuring that focus is not lost on the bigger picture for Anambra State.

 GOV. Soludo rightly set the tone in the scorecard he presented to ndi Anambra during the  anniversary.  

IT IS not only time to build basic infrastructure but to reposition the state for greatness.  

BUT the governor cannot do it all alone despite delivering more than enough within one year, notwithstanding global challenges and natural disasters and showing that  without borrowing one naira even when the  House of Assembly agreed that he should borrow N100 billion,  he can deliver qualitative governance.   

INDEED, his activities in the last one year  justify the people’s choice in pitching with him during November 6, 2021 election. That should also justify the need for ndi Anambra to rally around him to deliver the next level of his mission which he also spelt out last Saturday in his public address.

  WHILE  summarising  the plethora  of activities he had  in the last 365 days,  he established a positively unusual maiden year  dedicated to addressing fundamental issues upon which Anambra will build  to grow stronger and  better in the coming years.

GIVING  no room for excuses, the governor not only came across as someone with keenness for global standards but one who  runs a government with sound  intellectual background and  demonstrates native prudence. 

HE left no one in doubt that the ball is now in the court of  ndi Anambra in both private and public sectors, at home and in Diaspora, to take up the gauntlet  and help him sustain the current  momentum of development.

  OF COURSE, nobody expects everyone to take up the challenge with equal thew but logic demands that everyone should contribute according to his ability to deliver for everyone as their needs entail.

AND this utilitarianist messaging speaks to the agelong proverb of expecting every fish to fetch necessary ‘firewoods’ as their brawn may carry.

NOTHING less than this may be enough to complement the  workaholic  Gov. Soludo, who daily, works eight hours and 45 minutes since assuming the reins, because he sees his job as an assignment with a deadline.

GIVEN this, the  eighth session of the state legislature has its work well cut out because the executive is already setting the bar on what Anambra needs. That is  the first salvo in the challenge.

  THIS is where the governor’s invitation of the legislative and judicial arms partners in the  journey of building a smart mega city in the coming years of his  administration hits the bull’s eye.

 PERHAPS, the strategic position occupied by Anambra House of Assembly places more than middling size of the mantle in the hands of the incoming legislators. 

BUTthat’s what comes with the privilege of partnering a governor working round-the-clock to make Anambra a new axis of prosperity, among other lofty goals, through provision of 24 hr power supply ,  return of  Anambra to night economy; provision of comprehensive framework for sustainable solution to flooding by regular desilting of  drainages and introducing hitherto lacking planning in communities;  establishment of a digital tribe by laying 2000km of fibre optics ducts to ensure last mile connectivity for accessing high-speed internet and consolidation of the coconut revolution already underway, among others.

The   government’s commitment to taking ndi Anambra back to their agriculture root that was abandoned on arrival of crude oil is also one of the grand missions that have to be accomplished.

  EVEN if the legislators require no rocket science in creating adequate legislative templates  necessary to keep  pace with an executive arm led by a governor as swift as Prof. Soludo in actualising these flagship policies, they just have to note that ndi Anambra expect the feats.

HENCE, this is the time to go beyond prebendal partisanship, more so after elections have come and gone with everyone coming together as brothers after politics in line with the true Anambra spirit, if the legislators intend to be counted on the people’s side in the  Project Anambra.

FROM here, the onus goes to judiciary. If this crucial third link in the tripod will provide requisite legal frameworks for the Anambra Project,  partnering the executive in its determination to deliver on everything promised in the governor’s manifesto through prompt dispensation of justice without fear or favour, the state will grow in leaps and bounds.   

NOTHING less should be enough here, not when a little friction that may arise here and there through intra-or-inter agency agitations may find their way to the courts to test the state’s judicial process, making the land lose vital  time for her  needed  innovative reforms.

THIS test of faith may even arise from little disputes or even contentions arising from revenue administration as government plans to expand IGR base in realising the N5 billion yearly target, but that’s where ndi Anambra will be eager to see how the judiciary will keenly or slothfully set out rising up to the occasion to sustain an agenda that in just one year, has led to improving workers’ welfare by 10 per cent, cleared pensions and gratuities backlogs outstanding since 2018, transitioned from transactional to transformational governance and saved the state over N10.5 billion from new contacts awarded to mention but a few.

  CIVIL servants and other public sector workers come next in the new development matrix. From here, the pendulum swings to captains of industry, local investors, the youth, market women, school children – requesting everyone to see just how best to answer the clarion call for there is more than enough for just everyone’s pride in the quest to achieve a  prosperous and livable Anambra homeland . Indeed, everybody is in the consolidation journey together.