Obiano has spoken well

Willie Obiano, the new face of Anambra politics as governor has stated his direction with his VACE-Development-Policy. Vocation, Agriculture, Commerce and Energy are his tools for Rapid Industrialisation, and according to him, ‘I am in a hurry’. To have recognized industrialization at this point shows he’s got the right vibes, adding hurry to it means that it’s now, not later. That’s a relief and we’re watching. Vocation should not stop at acquiring skills, it should instill in trainees a ‘can do’ spirit. Innovation is it, not just doing the same thing, the same old way because it brings quick cash. Sometime ago, I visited Bali-Indonesia and saw how young girls made handbags out of cocoanut shells, neatly scraped and polished with a rope to sling. No shopping mall can resist its attraction. Ours is burnt. Key is, ‘look around, make something out of something’. This ideology should be instilled in youths. Vocation is not just to teach how to do things, it also creates a ‘receiver spot’ for inventions no matter how crude. Indeed, quarterly prices are awarded to first ten most exciting elementary innovations in Germany where I spent my youth. Indigenous innovations are improved on by experts and by what already exists. This way, the creative ingenuity is released and who knows what that can bring? Still on, he should build prisons. Don’t say bizarre. Catch all those criminals in Upper Iweka and many other crime flashpoints in the state, set up quick courts, try them, jail them; there in jail, they receive two things: punishment which teaches them that society is for ‘live and let live’. Within the frame of that punishment, discipline is instilled and Godliness as well. Truly Christian churches know what to do. The second thing they acquire is skill: carpentry, welding, repairs, decorations, etc. Since the government is thinking of filling all strata of the state’s oil and gas industry, vocations needed in the lower rungs of the industry get attention. You’d see that not all called criminals today truly are. Agriculture is the right button. We’ve read FAO reports of impending food crisis worldwide but especially in Africa. There was a time the yam we ate was ‘Ada Onicha’, where is it? Today, the specie readily available has short shelf-life, besides, after cooking, you have to eat immediately or risk seeing its colour change after a shortwhile. It’s not just food-production, the processing of it too. Out of one food item, many others flow. From yam alone, more than 20 varieties of yam product come. INNOVATION. Cocoyam, threeleaf-yam (onu), alligator-pepper, the one we now call ‘pepper-fruit’ (nmimi) are gradually going extinct. If we don’t find uses for them other than hitherto is, they’ll be gone.  The spices among them are rare, meaning that when properly researched on, their marketing scope carries competitive advantage because we have what others don’t. I am saying precisely that agriculture should not only focus on handy food items but should, as a matter of urgency, through creative policy, save those species going extinct and make a fortune out of them. Let’s leave out the marketing aspect of it because Anambra is the capital of marketing, even unsellable things. Fact is, agriculture will rewrite the fortunes of the state.

Luckily, oil and gas have come on board and in the next years will emphatically redefine the state but the folly it brings along should be carefully redirected to wise-ways. My worry is not the fortunes to accrue; it is the attitude of many Anambrarians towards money: a now-or-never thing. That shouldn’t be. In that bid, many questions arise: will the money go round or be resident in few homes? Would there be space to think about the environment? The River-Niger has become narrower; strands of sand have moved closer to narrow it. Excavation of these strands would reveal the wickedness of commerce to the environment, particularly, the seas. Most filth of the Onitsha market from 1960 till date empty into the River Niger and over the years, have forced the seabed to move upwards; today it’s become a kind of land-reclamation and perhaps, land-spectators may have started selling. When petrochemicals come into the picture, they can’t be as harmless as heretofore. THE GOVERNMENT MUST THINK ENVIRONMENT not just money to be made. There are generations after us. Onitsha like Aba should have enough raw materials for bio-fuel-energy. So while exploiting the hydrocarbon, the bio-component is an untapped resource too. We’re looking for an administration that will provide an escape from PHCN torment. Bio-fuel, solar, geo-thermal are all alternative energy sources that make sense.

We pray for Willie not to fail in the expectation he has activated. But besides money and industrialization are environment and values, they together, make a complete pack.