As Anambra State celebrates 33 years of creation, former Mayor of Kents in England and the Chief Of Staff to Governor Charles Soludo, Chief Earnest Ezeajughi speaks with OKEY MADUFORO on the journey of the state so far

Anambra State is 33 years old today. How would you describe the journey so far?
Thirty three years is not 33 days and you can agree with me that it has not been easy so far. The then military government in 1991 created Anambra State from the old Anambra and we now have Enugu and Anambra states and successive administrations both military and civilian, played their respective roles towards the development of the state.
Without prejudice to whatever they may have done we give them credit because it was the tooting stage of the state in terms of Infrastructural development as it were. But after 33 years of creation we are still laying foundation of the state in view of contending issues before the administration of Governor Charles Soludo.
When you look at issues that have to do with insecurity when we came into power, eight local government areas were under siege by hoodlums and gunmen and most parts of the state were no go areas. So Governor Soludo had to hit the ground running by tackling insecurity head long and today you can see that it has become a thing of history in most of those areas.
However we are not there yet because we still have pockets of areas where these people are still operating and certainly we shall get there. When you talk about infrastructure you can agree with me that in the last 33 years a lot need to be done in that sector and had it been that successive administrations did the needful by opening up and developing the rural areas we would have been doing some other things.
We would have been done with the infrastructures in Awka, Onitsha, Nnewi and Ekwulobia towns and places like Anam, Nzam and Obaofemili would have developed greatly but today we are working on those places .
These are areas that can be addressed as the food baskets of the state and this issue of rural urban migration would have been reduced. That is why I am saying that at 33 years we are still laying foundation that would have been done decades ago.
When you come to agricultural development you would discover that 33 years ago we abandoned that sector which has always been a money spinner for our state and today we are going back to land based of the policies and programs of the Soludo administration.
We have distributed seedlings to all the communities and local government areas in the state in the last three years and we are doing more to revive agriculture in Anambra State.

Are you saying that in the last 33 years it has been a mixed grill?
Obviously yes . This is as a result of the fact that there are areas we had done well but more areas and grounds to cover presently. I am not saying that past or successive administrations did not do anything but they were expected to have done more in the last thirty three years of our creation.
We had governors both military and civilian and they did their best but we expected them to do more in that regard. For instance, we are doing over 450 kilometre of roads and many have been completed and some are at various stages of completion and these are the roads that would have been constructed in the past thirty three years.

Anambra State is known for agriculture with lots of farm settlements here and there in the past. What has happened to these?
That boils down to the agricultural revolution that is going on in the state today. Remember that in the past late Michael Okpara started the agricultural revolution that was the main stay of the old Eastern Nigerian economy but today it has become moribund.
Against this backdrop, Governor Soludo has revived it through farming to feed programme and we have been distributing seedlings in the last three years now. Our administration is bringing back that programme of Late Chief Micheal Okpara and so far we are making progress in that area.
I remember when I was young, my father who was a civil servant had farms and we had farm settlements in my country home Awgbu, and it was through that programme that we were all trained while he was working as a civil servant. Also, recall that before the discovery of petroleum in Nigeria agriculture was the pillar of the Nigerian economy but since after the discovery of crude oil we abandoned it and that is the bane of our economy. So for us in Anambra State, we have jump-started the process and in the next three years with at least 10 seedlings of palm most Anambra people would become millioneirs while doing their primary assignments. This programme is far-reaching and has multiplayer effects on the economy of scale of the state.
Recently, Governor Soludo was had an award from Micheal Okpara Foundation for his agricultural revolution in the state and it is a source of encouragement for us here as a government.

How do you see the fate of Anambra State in the area of commerce industry and wealth creation that is dwindling?
The reasons are not far fetched and they are glaring too. Issues of decaying infrastructure, insecurity and misplacement of priority account for that. Due to insecurity our market has been relocated to Asaba in Delta state and before now people don’t want to do business in Onitsha due to insecurity. Also, the basic market infrastructure had collapsed hence the ease of doing business had been adversely affected by that.
But since the construction of major roads in Onitsha such as Niger Street, Port Harcourt street Miss Elem Street,Old Market road that leads to the Onitsha main market people are coming back to the market.
We have been tackling the sit-at-home order which has affected commerce industry and wealth creation and people now open their shops to do business in Onitsha. At the moment we are digitalizing the security apparatus of Onitsha Commercial Town with cameras everywhere which would check mate incidents of insecurity in Anambra State.
These were the things that would have been put in place in the last 33 years of the creation of Anambra State. However, we do not blame the past regimes because they may have their own areas of priority which they concentrated on.

But Anambra seem to had had its fair share of political crisis in the past 33 years?
We are just like any other state in Nigeria. We had cases of burning down the state by political thugs, impeachment of a governor, kidnapping of a governor internal political crisis in the parties but we had always over come those challenges. It may have been a sad commentary for our state but it has also brought out the best in us and we have learnt a lot from those sad tales of crisis. However, Anambra State have moved on and we are on course to our expected destination.

But the crisis appears to be unending following the lingering crisis in your party APGA?
This is not new to us in the party. We had it under Mr Peter Obi administration where we had Victor Umeh and Maxi Okwu , we had Victor Oyeh and the same Edozie Njoku as well as Jude Okeke and Victor Oyeh so it is not new to us as a political party. But what matters is that APGA is together and in one house and at the end of the day those issues would be addressed.
Be that as it may we have only one National Chairman of APGA which is Barr Sylvester Ezeokenwa and no other. It is however sad that in the list of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) it is only APGA that has a Chairman based on court order and one wonders why instead of a National Chairman based on the National Convention of the party it is due to court order.
At every election period one Edozie Njoku would come up with one antics or the other to distract the progress in the state. But those distractions cannot stop us from delivering on the mandate given to us by the people of Anambra State and we cannot be distracted by that. Very soon the issues would be made clear and we move on as normal.

But people are buying local government election nomination forms from Edozie Njoku?
That is interesting but it goes to no issue at this point. It is a matter of time and the truth would be made clear . We are on course for the conduct of the local government election and forms have been bought, primaries conducted and candidates have emerged through that process.
Remember this is local government election that is being conducted by the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission ANSIEC and the list of candidates are submitted to ANSIEC and not INEC .
So where would the Edozie Njoku camp submit their own lists ? Besides there was no validly conducted National Convention that produced Edozie Njoku as National Chairman of the party.
Earlier on other political parties said that they will not take part in the election but today the political parties under the platform of Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) has announced that they would participate in the election and that settles it and at the end of the day it would be a free fair and credible transparent process to produce elected Chairmen and Councillors for the twenty one local government areas of Anambra State.

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