By Willie Nwokoye
The third in the tripod of Governor Obiano's public finance strategy is what we can refer to here as "Other Peoples' Money". Call it OPM. This is illustrated by the institution Governor Obiano set up in 2014, called ANSIPPA (Anambra State Investment Promotion & Protection Agency).
Most people speed past the building at Aroma Junction in Awka but hardly understand its place in Obiano's public sector finance craft. It is there that investment interests, foreign and local are attracted, trapped and guided to concretize activities on site here. It is almost a Divinely-inspired thing done by a Governor, two years before the need of such institution became manifest to his colleagues. And certainly not yet understood by the caricatures pretending to Anambra leadership. That is the reason they grapple with the Umueri aerotropolis deal done with a Chinese aviation consortium. For the sake of their quick education, that deal is structured around the OPM financing strategy, not debt!
That part of Obiano's public finance equation has worked because the pre-conditional environment of peace, security and assurance of personal safety has been engendered thoroughly. And private money is having a clear channel of view to identify huge potentials here.
With this in mind, let us now look at the essential significance of Senator Chris Ngige lately and the philosophy being propagated by his band of political fellows in APC. Lacking principles, lacking ethic and decorum, the bunch of political contractors desperate for Anambra State public treasury and no more, are shooting out their heads in pretension for leadership. I have never seen or heard of a battery of political elements glued by a common instinct, which is a bizarre proclivity for destruction. Like the 'ajofia' masquerade, their suffocating odor is foreshadowing their appearance. Too unintelligent to bother about public appeal, their signature language is already unmistakably rumbling with its eerie imageries and foreboding: destruction, demolition, conquest, ejection from Government House, take over!
Let me foretell. The first thing that a mythical government ever to be constituted by this kind of bunch after Obiano, is the demolition of a complex public finance structure carefully constructed. It is principally on the basis of this financing framework that Anambra State today stands insulated from the excruciating environment of recession. So when people say casually that things work here when things stand still elsewhere, the fundamental reference is to this financial complexity taken for granted. The software that powers this complexity is personal honesty of the Governor around public finance. You cannot say the same of any of this bunch. Governance in Anambra State has long passed what this bunch still imagines. We shall profile them one by one as they emerge, each with what propels him to Anambra public office.
I further foretell that the first tragedy that they will inflict is the collapse of the financial tripod because OPM will flee from their bad company. Terror, which is a sitting member of their company will be emboldened. But God has (for-the-ordinary-man) reason to have brought Obiano to the throne the time He did and the way He did. God's reason still subsists. Light will triumph over darkness in November; and Anambra people and Nigerians genuinely at peace with prosperity will regret aloud having wasted precious time giving ear to these symbols of the past.
My advice: Anambra people should rather instead begin to weave their minds around potential leaders with 21st Century capacity for the new grammar of governance in Anambra State; leaders to advance things in the State after Obiano.
My prognosis: He that will take over in 2022 is not among the characters dancing around.
By Willie Nwokoye
