Anambra: Who Is Afraid Of Good Governance?

ANAMBRA STATE GOVERNOR PETER OBI.

THERE is this friend of mine from Anambra State who lives in Lagos. He once told me that whenever he goes to his home state, especially around Onitsha, he finds it difficult to go to any hospital.

He said when any of his family members falls sick, they go to neighbouring Enugu for medical attention. Curiously, I asked why? Here he goes: "Anambra people are very peaceful but unfortunately, they have roughnecks who hold the state in vice grips.

These people have become rich by operating outside the law and therefore see the law and due process as disastrous to their life chances.

It is only in a place like Anambra that someone everyone knows never went to any university will suddenly declare himself a doctor, opens a clinic, begins to kill people and even seize their corpses if relations do not make the right payment."

He continued, that in this state, you can start a business, say import goods legitimately from abroad, and some fiefs in charge of the area will pronounce that you cannot offload your goods or sell them! If you can recall the torrid time Peter Obi had with the motor park touts in his bid to cleanse the Onitsha environs only recently, then you will understand.

Yet this is a state that can be said to be the cradle of civilization in Igboland. The missionaries first touched base with Onitsha and this gave the people from that area a head-start in education and business when compared with other South East environs.

Till date, the catechism of Catholicism in Igboland is still written in Onitsha dialect. That perhaps explains why almost every distinguished personality from the East in the earlier years of colonial and post-colonial Nigeria came from Anambra.

Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nwafor Orizu, MCK Ajuluchukwu, Dozie Ikedife, Sir, Odumegwu Ojukwu and his son Emeka, Chike Obi, Chinua Achebe, Alex Ekwueme, Emeka Anyaoku, Augustine Ilodibe, Mary Onyali, Philip Emeagwali, Oby Ezekwesili, Ernest Ndukwe, Dora Akunyili and a long list of others.

In fact, one out of every two distinguished Igboman comes from Anambra State!

Nwokorigwe is a political scientist and lives in Lagos.