By Okey Maduforo.
It has been a journey from the emptiness of a construction site along the Awka- Enugu express way to a master piece of civil engineering located at Chief Emeka Anyaoku Bulovard known today as the Light House .
The dramatics personneas that held swear indeed came with that common denominator of raising the state from criddle of emptiness to basket of plenty.
The Igbo – Ukwu born economics came with his think home philosophy which indeed kick started the nursing of a new state created in 1991 showing a point of departure for a state desperate to make a strong statement in the country’s hall of fame.
Late Dr Chukwuemeka Ezeife midwifed that drive for Anambra people to invest at home which indeed produced the few housing estates that shouldered the socioeconomic development of Anambra.
Unfortunately the new junta led by late Gen Sani Abacha aborted the pregnancy of a growing state hence truncating those dreams and aspirations of late Okwadike Igbo- Ukwu.
At the inception of the Nigeria’s nascent democracy Late Dr Chinwoke Clement Mbadinuju came into the saddle facing the challenges of a new beginning with his developmental mantra Joint Action on Development (JAD) which was structured to carry all and sundry along in the development of Anambra state.
There is no gainsaying the fact that it was a good beginning for the state but for the monstrous interjection of the hangers on at the corridors of the power who ultimately derailed the process and the once high flying Governor got entrapped by their selfish wimps and caprices.
It indeed became years of holocaust as the collective interests of the people became a sole proprietorship business of those hangers on and that administration became a negative reference point in the annals of Anambra’s history.
While the hangers on waited in the wings for yet another feast of the vultures , they under estimated the diminutive fair skinned bearded medical practitioner in their moronic wishful thoughts that he can be pocketed .
Dr Chris Ngige came with horse wipes in both hands and it is no longer news that it was a thirty four months of long knives as he took the self styled godfathers headlong liberating the state from those years of holocaust.
While the categinian war lasted, Ngige made a rally crisis crossing the length and breath of the state with painstaking and mind blowing road construction which today is known as” Ngige standard ‘ sending the traducers to the cleaners.
Apparently the hangers on did not go to sleep as their vain glory machinations capsized the ship of a new Anambra hence terminating that administration.
Indeed the traducers rolled out their festive drum relishing their perceived victory over a recalcitrant godson oblivious of the dangers that laid in the dark quarters.
They saw him a trader and a weakling in power but to their chagrin, they all lost their deposits in that enterprise as Mr Peter Obi took a different path in his Anambra Integrated Development Strategy (ANIDS).
History can also judge Obi and his administration for sustaining the retirement of the godfathers despite the phantom impeachment that shook Anambra political landscape.
On that fateful day two SUVs had pulled to a stop at the Governor’s lodge Amawbia and a man fancifuly dressed and wearing a semblance of late American pan African music mega star pair of shoes; James Brown.
Many wished him away as one of those that must get carried away by the trapping of power; but far from it as Chief Willie Maduaburochukwu Obiano took charge and apparently changed the face of Anambra state by injecting that much needed tonic that transformed Awka Capital from a glorified local government headquarters to a near state capital.
Obiano has to his credit to have found a perfect successor in the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo who all the while has been learning the robes in the carrier of politics and making attempts without end to clinch the mantle of leadership.
Perhaps Soludo’s time had not come as it were and when the time was ripe , the Isuofia level headed Professor of Econometrics came very much prepared as he already had a template of his vision and mission for Anambra state and hit the ground running.
It has been more than four years now and still counting and Anambra state has become the destination point and no longer the departure lounge.
Chief Of Staff to Soludo Chief Earnest Ezeajughi indeed painted a carnival picture of the administration of the Governor describing it as a mission to serve and to sustain.
“There is no one in Anambra state that cannot attest to the glaring fact that Prof Charles Soludo has taken the state on the rise and that is what NdiAnambra are celebrating today”
“He took all sectors at once with a set of men and women who keyed into his philosophy of governance playing the executors of those policies and programs ”
Ezeajughi further made an insight on what Anambra would be after the next four years carpeting the Governor’s political opponents for not having the balls to unseat him in the November 8th gubernatorial election.
“It is apparent that those dreaming of unseating Soludo do not have that milders touch of solution to the challenges of Anambra state and they would only participate but not contest as it is clear that there is no contest at all” he noted.
For a state like Anambra, it has been a journey of several trajectories that are indeed giving birth to a mission about to be firmly accomplished.
