Anambra state is one of the greatest states inside the Nigerian federation.
With Awka as capital city and Onitsha as commercial mega city the state is rich and blessed with arable lands that grow food and vegetables all year long.
Anambra state could be said to be the heartland of the Igbo ethnic group that have other states like Imo, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi and some parts of Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa states.
Twenty one local government areas (including the blessed land of my birth, Ihiala) make up the “The Light Of The Nation”.
Anambra is great because Ndi-Anambra are culturally-strong people who value work and marriage.
Anambra is great because there is a wholesome ‘competition’ for success from the grassroot level.
Almost every son or daughter of the soil has this ambition from childhood to become somebody in life!
Anambra as a state has contributed its fair share to the advancement of the Nigerian nation even though the late great man (Ikemba Ojukwu Nnewi) that questioned the unity in the late sixties/early seventies had had his cogent reasons for militarily wanting to secede and create the state of Biafra.
Today Nigeria is still a fragmented federation with minority groups still agitating for secession decades after Ojukwu saw the urgent need to re-write the national history and make things better for his marginalised oppressed people.
There must be a way of restructuring the much-criticised Nigerian federal system with imperial ‘almighty’ powers vested in the presidency at the centre.
True unadulterated federalism must be established if we are to guard against the antics of secessionist elements within.
Anambra is the birthplace of the late legends like Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first President of the independent Nigeria; Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the Biafran war hero and founding-father of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA); Prof Chinua Achebe, globally acclaimed author of “Things Fall Apart” etc.
Anambra made history as the first state in Nigeria to have produced a woman Governor in the person of Dame Virginia Etiaba who rose to the gubernatorial position after the wrongful impeachment of the then incumbent Governor Peter Obi.
[Obi later bounced back to his office after some judicial rescue.]
Anambra is a state where a Governor rigged into office could decide to go against the run of play by refusing to continue to become a stooge of the godfather who made him governor.
That assertion of independence and authority cost him dearly as the greedy godfather literally burnt the state down with his thugs and forced the governor (now Minister Chris Ngige) to announce his ‘resignation’!
It turned out that the anointed glorified ‘godson’ had suddenly found his voice and stopped allowing unfettered access of the furious godfather to the state treasury where millions of dollars were looted.
He performed creditably well despite his ‘godfatheric’ ordeal — developing the state infrastructurally to cement his legacy in the hearts and minds of Ndi-Anambra.
The high court sacked him and enthroned Peter Obi who won the guber poll but was rigged out.
Former Governor Obi fought hard and tough judicially to reclaim his stolen mandate and when the mandate was again purloined from him for a record second time he went to court and again retrieved it back making history as a true believer in judicial adjudication of gubernatorial matters.
Obi is a gentleman and a good politician!
He performed very well as Governor for eight years bringing leadership to bear on the governance of a difficult state with great wealth in individual hands.
But by decamping from APGA to the sinking PDP Obi had reneged on the promise he made to the late Ikemba Nnewi that he would never abandon APGA for any other party.
Politicians could be fair-weather friends and associates you know.
In November 2013, Willie Obiano became the governor of Anambra state (after some alleged multiple electoral malpractices) having successfully contested for the position under the platform of the APGA ruling party.
A native of Aguleri in Anambra east local government area Gov. Obiano was born on August 18, 1957.
He attended the University of Lagos where he obtained a B.Sc. (Second Class Upper Division) in Accounting in the year 1979 and an MBA in Marketing in the year 1993.
He is married to one Ebelechukwu alias ‘Osodieme’.
Osodieme is an Igbo word (with its romantic, praise-singing and self-glorifying connotations) which means in English: a wife that labours with her husband.
Ebelechukwu reminds one of a Patience Jonathan in Aso Rock: power-hungry, capricious, overbearing and narcissistic.
She is famous for slapping people around and asking opponents on social media to put their faces forward for some smacking lessons!