This column is known for or its consistency and focus on small business development and informal credit markets. Today, we make an exception and ask for the indulgence of our readers to bring in something fresh from one of Nigeria’s most maligned and ridiculed states – Imo. The story of Imo is so sordid that even the nation’s ruling party, the APC, which also controlled the state, disowned its governor, and couldn’t be bothered if it went to the opposition, just to dissociate itself from the circus playing in Owerri. Something needed to happen and it did recently.
Something worthy of mention happened in Owerri, the capital of Imo State, exactly one week ago; precisely on Wednesday last week. The Governor-elect, the Emeka Ihedioha, had made a clarion call to Imo citizens to join him to rebuild the state and the response was overwhelming. Businessmen, professionals, intellectuals and others who are involved and accomplished in their different fields of human endeavour all turned out to answer him. He had asked them to come and help him set up the kind of government they expect, will propel the fulfilment of his election manifesto and deliver the good governance he promised the people.
The inauguration of the Transition Technical Committee (TTC) on Wednesday, has attracted so much interest in and around Imo State. Even before they were officially empanelled, the social media was awash with very positive stories about the TTC and its comprehensive assemblage of high-end professionals, entrepreneurs and tested business leaders. The team is led by Ernest Ebi, a former Deputy Chief Executive of a top ten bank and former Deputy Governor of the Nigerian Central Bank. Clearly, the people of Imo State will show more than a passing interest in their conduct and work of the Transition Committee.
The citizens congratulated, praised and urged the members to give their best. Indeed, the job of salvaging Imo from a group of pretenders, rejected even by their own political party, cannot be a tea party. As the Governor-elect said in his inaugural speech “This assignment is a very critical one”. Without doubt, the people were waiting for Emeka Ihedioha and he has come.
It is easy to wonder or even ask what is so special about the Emeka Ihedioha Technical Transition Committee (TTC); after all even the failed outgoing administration of the state had such a committee to usher in his government. Of course, most governments begin with a transitional arrangement. They set up committees and teams of experts, even across political party lines, to give them an outsider’s viewpoint on what they already know. Sometimes, such committees are merely a propaganda tool, as those setting them up had already made up their minds on everything they want to do, or not to do. That is true. However, the current TTC, which Ihedioha inaugurated has many differentiating features. Incidentally, yours truly has been involved in, at least, two previous transitional committees in and outside the state, prior to this one and could claim some experience in this regard.
To start with, the governor-elect did what was actually novel. He wrote a personally signed letter to each person he nominated to the committees and followed it up with personal phone calls to put a personal touch to the nomination. As he said on the floor of the plenary session, following the inauguration, he knew everybody he invited either personally or by reputation. What does this say? It tells me that the members of the TTC were not contributed by party big whigs to represent them at the committee. The governor-elect did, and in accordance with his knowledge of the people. This again says something about the hands on preparedness of Ihedioha. He knows where the human resources of the state are hidden and will fish them out to help him enhance his work.
Secondly, the governor-elect sat by the various committees for much of the day fielding questions and explaining his intensions as expressed in the terms of reference, which he gave the sub-committees. He did not use aids and supporters to explain his thoughts to the members. He let them embrace him in a sound game of mutual respect. Evidently, the experience he has garnered while serving the nation at various levels came handy both in his, choice of humane words, humility as reflected in his courtesy to members and his clarity of vision as reflected in the themes of the terms of reference.
Undoubtedly, the people of Imo State have waited for this day. The past eight years have been full of regrets. Those who wrote the blue print and policy guidebook for the disaster that was the outgoing government will tell you the man never respected the people. There was evident and utter disdain for superior knowledge and the government treated very disdainfully, people with any kind of acknowledge, intellect or success records. Indeed, there seemed to have been a kind of serious disregard or hatred for intellectuals and accomplished people – a natural consequence of inferiority complex. But Emeka Ihedioha sounds well. He reads and writes well and he is not afraid to work with brilliant people. He has always done so and has demonstrated it by the calibre of people he called to share his vision, even at this transitional stage.
The people of Imo State have been made the butt of all jokes in Nigeria over the last few years. Even states, whose leadership failed likewise managed to keep their pride and avoid “iberiberism”. Not Imo state. It is one place people put little or no value on knowledge but expect to make progress in a knowledge-driven world. The natural consequence is “iberiberism”; people with dreadful knowledge deficit brandish native intelligence as a good alternative to modern education. They convert their primitive local words to elements of the English vocabulary and try to popularize ignorance.
Because a little learning is indeed a dangerous thing, they refuse to see any need to improve. A little learning makes a man think of himself as the living Solomon and the reservoir of knowledge. Everybody, except him, sees what is wrong but he doesn’t. Imo people just passed through what is worse than a purgatory experience. They have seen the worst of the evils of ignorance, pride, arrogance and crass hunger for wealth accumulation.
The Imo TTC members and the governor-elect must know one thing: Imo is bare. There is nothing standing; no structure; no policy framework; no direction and no strategy. It will be foolhardy to expect even one sensible piece of handover report from anybody that will be of any value because there is nothing written down. For an entity that has been ravaged by something worse than a hurricane; whose civil service has been deleted and civil servants turned to praise singers; whose educational institutions have become a tool for defrauding the little kids and their parents; a place that has been looted bare like no other, the task is arduous.
Luckily, the members of the TTC are mostly men of means in their various rights, and are willing to make the necessary sacrifice. They have already shown evidence of that willingness by making various gestures to ensure that the burden of this exercise is not lodged on the already overburdened shoulders and pockets of their principal who has no access to any public funds. They are also, and more importantly, aware that not all good deeds are rewarded here on earth. Above all, they recognize that deferred gratification is a vital argument in the development equations of great endeavours and nations. As Emeka Ihedioha has repeatedly said, let us rebuild Imo. We can.
Emeka Osuji
