‘My Roadmap for  Anambra state’

Dr Andy Uba, gubernatorial candidate of the Labour Party(LP)

— Dr Andy Uba, gubernatorial candidate of the Labour Party(LP)
By Okechukwu Obenta, Awka
What is your roadmap for the development of Anambra state in case you eventually become governor.
Our economic development initiative shall be a multi-pronged one; with a strategic goal of nurturing all facets of Anambra’s economy to create viable revenue earnings. In addition, we shall work aggressively to diversify our economic realities and potentials. Our administration shall not be one that relies primarily on federal allocation to carry out its responsibilities. Instead, we will take the lead in leveraging the economic realities and potentials diversified in a diversified manner and also provide the strategic framework for their execution.
Based on our studies, we shall focus on the following areas as a means of achieving a sustained and effective implementation of our strategies for economic development. Based on the volume of commercial and manufacturing/industrial activities in the Onitsha/Nnewi axis, a significant opportunity exists for the development of a Financial Services industry in Anambra State. Other major global commercial hubs such as Singapore, Dubai, and Hong Kong double as major financial centers and, by extension, drive the economic development of their regions. Under our plan, Anambra will become the financial engine room that will drive the development of not only the entire South east, but generally, Nigeria and indeed the West African sub-region. Services to be provided would include Microfinance, Mortgage Finance, Merchant Banking, Insurance Services, Forex Markets, Clearing Houses, Investment Banking; in addition to professional services as provided by Brokers, Analysts, Accountants, Financial Advisers, Risk Underwriters, Adjusters, and even Lawyers to formalise and leverage statewide economic activities.
The objective of our Administration will be to provide an integrated programme for transportation and logistics. This programme will have a multi-modal approach with a view to making Anambra the nation’s transport and logistics centre, by taking advantage of its position as an “authentic gateway”, bordered on land by six states, and accessible via inland waterways to many more.
Our Transportation Programme for Anambra will be incorporated into the Federal Government’s ongoing restructuring of the Transport Sector. The format will be that of a constructive partnership between the public and private sectors. We will encourage investments in the sector by Anambrarians, including those in the Diaspora; and will equally extend the invitation to participate, to proven and potential friends of Anambra, as well as the international business community.
How is your administration going to handle the education sector and youth empowerment.
Education is a veritable instrument of growth and development, and also provides the platform on which the progress of other sectors of the economy is determined. A poor educational sector begets an economically disadvantaged social and political system; creating widespread dislocations and unrest.
The pre-war and pre-military administration educational period could be described as the golden era of education in Nigeria. Schools were well equipped and professionally staffed, pupils were the pride of their communities, teaching was a noble profession, and the system was merit-based.
At the secondary level, Anambra could boast of first class institutions such as Dennis Memorial Grammar School (DMGS) Onitsha, Christ the King College (CKC) Onitsha, St. Pauls’ Teachers Training College (TTC) Awka, Abbot Secondary School Ihiala, St. Peters High School Achina, Okongwu Memorial Grammar School Nnewi, to mention a few. These schools in no small way contributed to building Anambra’s reputation of producing first class educationists and intellectuals such as the Great Zik of Africa, Professor Kenneth Dike, Dr. Abyssinia Nwafor-Orizu, Professor Chike Obi, and more recently Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Professor Chinua Achebe, Chief Jerome Udoji, etc.
The situation today, however, is a much different one. Due to the gross neglect of the educational sector, the standard of our education dropped significantly. Mediocrity has overtaken merit, facilities are dilapidated, investments have greatly reduced, institutions are lacking equipment and materials, and the overall quality of our students continues to drop. Simply put, a state of emergency exists in our educational sector. However, we will intervene in this critical sector in order to revamp and reposition our educational sector. Our Administration will ensure that we return our State to its preeminent position.
We will provide student support in the form of subsidising the supply of educational materials such as notebooks, textbooks, teaching aids, etc. At the tertiary level, we will articulate a merit-based Tertiary Education Students Support Fund (in conjunction with relevant stakeholders) to assist funding, sponsorships, scholarships, bursaries, and even endowment component will be emphasised in our educational systems; to include (but not be limited to) Sports, Drama/Theatre, Young Farmers’ Clubs, Mentoring, Community Interaction Programs, and Debating Societies.We will launch a computer literacy programme tagged e-world. It will be concise and targeted at our children (at various ages) and will be mainly school-based. It will prepare them by building their capacity to compete in today’s global village, one which is IT-based. e-world will complement our policy of promoting the availability of internet facilities and commercial communication “backbones” around the State. We will inculcate business education and specialised entrepreneurship classes in our State-owned educational institutions. These classes will be developed to offer functional and industry-specific training; and will be offered through both formal and continuing education/skills acquisition methods.
Anambra state is endowed with vast land resources, what would your administration agriculture policy be like?
With a favourable climate and vast land resources of 4,415.5 sq km (about 70% of which is arable), Anambra State can be described as a repository of agricultural potentials.The predominantly agricultural areas in the state; Ayamelum, Ihiala, Ekwusigo, Oyi, Aguata, Ogbaru, Orumba, Anambra East, and West have potentials for crops, livestock, veterinary, fisheries, and forestry cultivation. In particular, our state is rich in oil palm, mangoes, cashew, rice, cassava, yam, maize, as well as other valuable grains and vegetables. It also has significant capacity for poultry and piggery investments, as well as fish farming and livestock.Our strategic focus will be to build a food basket on the foundation of this evidently vast natural agricultural resource, by systematically establishing capacity along Food Production, Processing, Preservation, and Storage value chain. This thrust will be augmented by directly expanding the capacity of the Agro-Allied Industries that localise and add value to the agricultural supply chain. Studies show that about 40% of our population lives in the rural areas, while 75% engage in one form of agriculture or the other. As a primary initiative therefore, we will pilot sustainable subsistence farming programs as part of the socio-cultural way of life of Anambrarians. If each family can at least feed itself, it will go a long way in uplifting their living standards and quality of life; and will fit appropriately into our concerted efforts to alleviate poverty.
Since we cannot achieve optimal production in agriculture without mechanisation, the Anambra State Tractor Hiring Company will be reorganised by providing an interface with the private sector (particularly financial institutions) in line with contemporary exigencies. In other words, provision of mechanised farming equipment will be based on a combination of need and commercially exigent considerations.The multiplier effect of maximised production in the agricultural sector will be an abundance of agricultural produce, and the consequent development of processing and preservation industries. Our agriculture policy does not end at harvesting, but rather continues to processing, preservation, value-addition, and then export.
The Federal Government has a policy it operates with the Central Bank (in collaboration with Commercial Banks) that mandates the setting aside of a prescribed ratio of lendable funds for agricultural credit. To complement this, we will provide a technical support base (in form of awareness, enlightenment, and training programs) to assist our farmers in packaging themselves adequately to benefit from this scheme. We will empower our farmers to key into ongoing Federal Government initiatives such as Agricultural Development Bank loan facilities and the Federal Government cassava production initiative. We will continue the ongoing bulk purchase and mass distribution of fertiliser at subsidised prices to farmers. In order to ensure that the fertiliser gets to the intended recipients, our distribution mechanism will target the farmers and farming communities directly. We will equally explore the idea of enhancing the scientific quality, as well as production capacity, of local fertilisers.We will distribute these seedlings to farmers and farming communities at subsidised rates, and coordinate distribution to reflect the peculiarities in soil composition in Anambra. We will also aggressively pursue the local production of fertiliser using new and innovative technologies. We realise the futility of depending on imported fertiliser, and are currently studying different approaches of recycling waste to fertilizer. Our goal is to not only be self-reliant as a State, but to also earn export revenue from production. As part of developing an agricultural culture among Anambrarians, basics and fundamentals of agriculture will be taught under formal and informal structures. This will involve statewide enlightenment programmes under the auspices of the Agricultural Development Project (ADP), and the injection of these tenets in our school curricula under the pivots of the Anambra State University and the College of Agriculture, Igbariam. Young Farmers’ Clubs, YFCs, will be reintroduced in our schools at primary and secondary levels in order to imbibe a farming culture in our students from an early age. In addition, we will ensure that our farmers are kept abreast of the latest technological innovations and developments in farming techniques.
What about the development of the health sector?
It is often said that “health is wealth” and by extension “a healthy nation is a wealthy nation.” In other words, wealth is a direct derivative of good health. In this context, how ‘healthy’ is Anambra State? The answer to this question is thus important as it can determine how “wealthy” our state is.The standard of healthcare anywhere is measured by such fundamental factors as; access to primary healthcare facilities, qualifications of medical personnel, state of physical structures, medical equipment and facilities therein, curative (including acute care/trauma) facilities. The availability of hygienic public utilities e.g. potable water supply and reliable electricity supply, as well as appropriate housing conditions, sanitary waste disposal/recycling systems, etc., also provide auxiliary metrics to ascertain the general state of healthcare in any locality. Our preliminary analysis is that the overall healthcare delivery system in Anambra can be greatly and rapidly improved upon, provided the right systemic and systematic program of action is put in place. As funding is limited, there is a need to prioritise (without prejudice - at least in the short run) and concentrate on a specific aspect or aspects of healthcare. Our findings recommend that we adopt a bottom-up approach to healthcare by focusing on primary healthcare; as a functional primary healthcare system will relieve demand for secondary and tertiary attention in curative facilities. In other words, prevention is better than cure.
It has been established that the cost of offering tertiary healthcare to one patient might probably give same to 25 primary health center patients. This is because the preventive cost of primary health care is lower than the curative cost of remedies that tertiary health care relies upon. Indeed, a recent free medical services road-show report showed that of the 150 patients treated, all (but 8) required primary health care attention.
This, in addition to providing general health care, will allow them to be the arrow heads of our immunization and vaccination as well as our proposed HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. Our Administration will partner with the Local Governments to ensure the success of our initiatives. Though our short-term priority will focus on building up primary healthcare capacity and delivery, we will put in place tertiary (including acute/trauma) healthcare initiatives. We will first complement the Primary Healthcare System with Specialist Hospitals; and will equip four specialist hospitals (each concentrating on one specialty). For example, the Amaku General Hospital in Awka will be treated as a model; since (among other advantages) it can serve the state capital.
In line with our constructive and collaborative partnerships with the private sector, we will encourage the development of first-rate pharmaceutical and medical technology research laboratories and centers.
The human resource procurement component of our healthcare system will be based on need, identified positions (with specific responsibilities and qualifications), and merit; and not on nepotism. Opportunities for conferences, seminars, and courses will encourage professional development already inherent in properly structured hospital grading. Staff retention will be based on increased job satisfaction, and room for upward mobility within health-related professions will be instilled in the system.
Our Administration will also pay attention to the training of House Officers. The poor condition of our State Hospitals has denied some young Doctors of Anambra origin the opportunity to train locally as House Officers; and this contributes to the brain drain (even locally, within Nigeria) experienced in the profession. We will arrest the situation where young doctors fail to get placements as House Officers, as a precondition to retaining enough qualified and motivated Doctors to meet our healthcare requirements. Another important component of our healthcare policy will be the reintroduction and reinvigoration of the medical mission programs. We will encourage our foreign-based medical personnel to embark on time-based medical missions as a means of knowledge/skill transfer, to augment our local capacity; as well as act as mentors for our home-based medical personnel.