The Minister of Information, Mallam Labaran Maku and his team were in the South-East zone between 17th January, 2013 and 1st February, 2013. It was the turn of the zone for the National Good Governance Team to inspect projects executed by the three levels of government in Abia, imo, Anambra, Enugu and Ebonyi states.
According to the minister, the Good Governance Tour was designed by all stakeholders in government to showcase the projects executed in the states by the federal, state and local governments and to prove or show Nigerians that democracy has started to bear fruits. Mallam Labaran Maku emphasized that the tour was not a People’s Democratic Party, PDP affair or put up to antagonize or berate governor’s from other parties, adding that what mattered to all Nigerians were life-changing projects and not the political parties leaders belonged.
No doubt, the initiators of the National Good Governance tour deserve commendations. The tour remains unprecedented and symbolic since the inception of democracy in 1999. This innovation brings leaders face to face with their people, tasks leaders, brings the best out of leaders. It is a kind of wake up call. Unfortunately, the three days assigned to each state for the tour to last is grossly inadequate, cumbersome and unhealthy.
During the Town Hall Meetings, many questions, were not answered, perhaps as a result of time constraints. There were questions and answers from the sublime to the ridiculous. Overall, the Good Governance Tour in the South-East Zone was a success.
One spectacular or golden observation of the Honourable Minister and worth restating is the assertion that the South-East zone possesses the potential to emerge the Taiwan of Africa with the huge investments in the power sector and infrastructural development, especially in the area of rail lines. Labaran Maku was not scoring cheap political point. However, to attain to this height is not a mean feat to be achieved in isolation.
Of course, the South-East zone possesses the human, material and natural resources. It equally possesses the ingenuity, determination and doggedness rare qualities that saw the former eastern region through the horrors of the Nigerian Civil war
Challenges are inevitable in human existence. Turbulence brings the best of leaders. AS apex leaders in the South-East zone, Excellencies Theodore Orji, Rochas Okorocha, Peter Obi, Sullivan Chime and Martin Elechi should commence the enabling environment. History is beckoning on the governors to carve a niche for themselves, write their names in gold by leading the South-East Zone to realize and attain the objective of an economic and industrial base, if not for Africa but for Nigeria. This is an aspiration feasible, if only the governors can rise above grand-standing, sycophancy, selfishness and hangers-on.
To kick start an economic and industrial base, a Think Tank composed of the intelligentsia, business moguls and tested industrialists should be constituted. The Pascal Dozies, the Bath Nnajis, the Professor Chinedu Nebos are in legion. The Ibetos, the Coscharises, the lnnosons are not in short supply. The captain Emmanuel Iheanachos and Dr. Patrick lfeanyi Ubas are making waves in the oil sector. Same is the Frank Nnejis who are transport magnets. Economic summits will open the frontiers for an economic and industrial revolution. Already Aba and Nnewi are benchmarks.
Knowledge rules the world. If the citizens are not knowledgeable, they cant be investigative. Science and Technology makes a nation great.
Elsewhere, especially in the North, agriculture has been the pride of the zone and a major revenue earner, although not without Federal Government financially assisted dams and irrigation facilities. And in the case of the South-East zone, rivers and streams dot the landscape. The lands are fertile and the zone is blessed with adequate rainfall. The addition of mechanization, dams and irrigation facilities for dry season farming places the zone on a high pedestal to feed itself, other zones and still have surplus to export.
The republican and enterprising nature of Ibos is often misunderstood. The South-East zone since independence believed in the corporate existence of Nigerian federation, worked and defended it. Ibos have invested massively, infrastructurally and in business beyond the South-East zone, without an iota of reciprocity, except gratitude expressed in aggression, destruction of lives, business investments and life-savings of the people not even palliative compensation paid to the victims. In this regard, the governors should come up with action and programmes to forestall anguish of Ibo businessmen by creating fertile grounds at home. Sending delegations, liaising with Ibos in diaspora to replicate Ladipo Motor spare parts and Alaba Electronic/Electrical Markets Lagos in the South-East Zone will transform the zone.
Political power anchored to place a glass-ceiling on any section of Nigeria characterized our national politics in the past. And this is what Jonathan Presidency abhors and asserts to stamp out.
The Honourable Minister has said it all. We commend and appreciate his outspokenness and point-blankness.
