New Telegraph

We’re committed to building a livable homeland –Soludo

  • ‘We are cutting cost and delivering  service to Anambra people’

 

Anambra State Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, recently clocked 100 days in office. In this interview, he speaks on achievements of his administration so far and how he is confronting the challenges the state is facing. OKEY MADUFORO reports

 

How has the journey been in the last 100 days as governor of Anambra State?

 

We have just clocked our first 100 days in office since you employed me and Dr. Onyekachukwu Ibezim to serve you as governor and deputy governor, respectively. I am not a fan of the fad about the first 100 days. I prefer to give you comprehensive annual reports and I look forward to the first one in March 2023.

 

However, as a responsive government and as part of our periodic citizens’ engagement, we are providing this briefing on this short term milestone. We will also periodically brief and engage you as our employers, through interactive phone-in radio programmes.

 

As promised, we hit the ground running from the first minute after swearing-in; working for eight hours and 45 minutes on that day, starting with a three and a half hours meeting on security. Since then, I go to the office every day and literally working 24/7 to make you proud.

 

To be sure, the last 100 days have been bumpy and challenging as expected, with insecurity and a red treasury being the most portent, as clearly identified in our inaugural address. Since February 2022, the contribution of oil revenue from the Nigerian National petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to the federation account has been zero and many states have difficulty paying salaries.

 

Thus, with declining revenue in the context of insecurity and a mountain of debt, including over N20 billion in arrears of gratuity to pensioners since 2018 vis-à-vis the sky-high expectations from the people, some fundamental disruptive changes are inevitable. I remind everyone who has tried to commiserate with me that I consciously applied for this job, and there will be no excuses.

 

We thank you, all, for your continued solidarity and support.

 

Together, Anambra will win! We have spent the last 100 days addressing some key foundational issues: appointed, swore-in and organized a retreat for a new cabinet within five weeks; launched the campaign to mobilize our people to take back our state from criminals and head-on systematic and comprehensive attack on insecurity to restore law and order; revised the 2022 budget and provided unprecedented allocation of 64 per cent for capital/infrastructural development as well as priority for youth development; declared a state of emergency on roads and traffic and preparing to flag-off the construction of over 220 kilometres of roads as the rains subside; getting touts out of our roads and markets and redefining the purpose and character of government focused upon service delivery as well as prudent and transparent fiscal management.

 

We are ending the phenomenon of schools without teachers and hospitals without doctors by embarking on an ambitious, open and competitive process to recruit thousands of teachers as well as doctors, pharmacists and nurses for our hospitals; cleaning up the mountains of waste on our roads; working to ensure that entry into and exit from Anambra especially at Amansea and bridge-head Onitsha become pleasurable experience; signaling our urban renewal agenda with illustrative ambitious agenda for cleaning and modernizing Okpoko and Onitsha metropolis as well as other urban centres which will take greater vigor after the rainy season; laying the foundation for our everything technology and technology everywhere agenda; restructuring and digitizing our Internal Revenue Service; designing and approving a regime for a GIS and digitization of our land registry; launching a policy of never owing gratuity to new retirees and gradually paying down the backlog for the State civil service and approving same for local governments.

 

In sum, let me assure you that so far, so bumpy but so good! Most people attest that the grave insecurity is being significantly contained, and we are unrelenting. All eyes are on the ball and we are determined to ensure that despite the daunting challenges, our state will remain on course to a livable and prosperous smart homeland.

 

We remain focused on implementing the Soludo Solution – the People’s Manifesto, with its five driving pillars: Security, Law and Order; Economic Transformation Agenda; Social Agenda; Governance, Rule of Law and Value System; and Environment – towards a clean, green and planned sustainable communities, markets and cities.

 

What is the level of progress with the battle against insecurity in the state?

 

We created a new Ministry of Homeland Affairs; for homeland security to signal the emergency and utmost priority on homeland security; embarked upon massive consultation, mobilization and sensitization of the citizens and critical stakeholders – including security agencies, the clergy, traditional rulers, town unions, youths, civil society organizations, businessmen and women and agita-tion groups.

 

We worked with South East Bishops to organize prayers; offered amnesty/carrot to repentant outlaws. The people are united in fighting against the lucrative criminal enterprise and its idolatrous energizer which held the entire Anambra South Senatorial Zone plus Ogbaru Local Government hostage.

 

The criminals masquerading as agitators have been exposed, and the nexus between crime, idolatry and hard drugs has become evident. The narrative is changing and the people are seizing the conversation and initiative.

 

Declared zero tolerance for criminality and drug abuse, and declared war on all criminals in Anambra State. No forest, bush or house can accommodate criminals in Anambra and government is determined to do sustained battle with them. It took some years for criminality to take deep root in parts of the state and we have a longer-term perspective on sustainable solutions.

 

We remain grateful to the various security agencies for the massive support and professionalism. We also created Anambra State Vigilante Central Strike Force to complement the security forces to keep our forests and homeland free of the criminals.

 

Recently your administration set up a peace committee, how far has the committee gone?

 

We established and inaugurated the Truth, Justice and Peace Committee to investigate the remote and immediate causes of the agitation and violence in Anambra/South East; seek a restorative justice approach for truth-telling or real facts; for the healing of the victims of the violence, accounting for responsibility and accountability of the actors, conditional mercy for the repentant perpetrators, restitution for certain losses and rehabilitation of the perpetrators, for the overall aim of restoration of peace and justice as well as the promotion of development in the state and region.

 

Also as part of fighting insecurity, we declared zero tolerance for touting, which has endeared the government to transport owners, operators and stake

 

 

 

 

holders. More programmes and projects will be unveiled in due course particularly to retrain and empower the former touts. Citizen participation has been emboldened.

 

We have created an avenue for connecting with the people by the provision of seven phone lines for citizens to reach the security managers of the state. There is a flood of actionable intelligence and the security forces are prompt with response.

 

The 6.pm to 6.am curfew on motorcycles, tricycles and shuttle buses in eight local government areas is a short term security measure that will be lifted in no distant time. Work is ongoing to restructure and strengthen the community security architecture and deployment of technology in security.

 

We also declared state of emergency on traffic management and the Anambra Road Traffic Management Agency (ARTMA) is being strengthened to deliver.

So far, what are the successes of your economic t

ransformation agenda?

 

In the area of works and Infrastructure, a new framework for a combination of direct labour model and outsourcing model in the provision of roads/infrastructure as well as concessioning, public private partnership, public-community partnership as well as rural community infrastructure development model are being worked out.

 

Direct Labour Intervention has been successfully deployed to rebuild the washout section of Onitsha- Enugu Federal Highway opposite Chisco Park at Onitsha as well as the Amansea section of the Enugu-Onitsha Federal High way at a highly cost effective rate.

 

Engineering design and procurement processes have been completed and contractors will soon move to site to deal with two dangerous portions of two federal highways which experience massive flooding each year, drowning unsuspecting commuters.

 

These are the Ekwulobia-Nnobi federal road and the Ogbunike-Ogidi section of the Enugu- Onitsha Road. De-silting of 1km of the Obodoukwu road, Okpoko to Idemili River end of the Sakamori storm water discharge is still on-going and will soon move on to the Fegge/Nwangene end of the discharge drain.

 

Hydrological studies and hydraulic designs of storm water discharge channels as well as engineering designs are almost completed for over 220 Kilometres of roads scattered all over Anambra state and these roads will all be flagged off for construction before the dry season commences. In the light of the administration’s goal to attain universal electricity access for Anambra people, the government reconstituted and reinvigorated the Anambra State Power Committee, which also has the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) as a member.

 

The committee recently finished a retreat and is finalizing details of the plans and programmes, including the legal/regulatory framework to align all the stakeholders in the electricity market in Anambra and ensure optimal performance and delivery of government’s target. We are also carrying out the rehabilitation of the water facilities at the Jerome Udorji Secretariat for civil servants.

 

The secretariat has not had water running in the offices for over eight years. In the area of agriculture we have successfully launched new agro-economic transformation along the oil-palm and coconut value chains, with the target of planning one million trees per annum. Over 30 communities, institutions and investors have been profiled to plant over 2.5 million seedlings, in partnership with the state government.

 

 

This is designed to re-start from where Dr. M.I. Okpara stopped and to maximize our potentials in these highly profitable agro value chains – to create jobs, wealth and revenue to government. We created 14 task teams to aggressively drive the agro-transformation agenda of this new government at all levels.

 

There is the reactivation of the Ministry of Agriculture E-platform for data gathering, hosting and dissemination, to enable R&D, tech-driven monitoring and evaluation.

 

Restoration of the image of Anambra State as a responsible, trustworthy recipient of development programmes by World Bank, African Development Bank, United Nations and the Federal Government, among others by paying counterpart funding as we as the adoption and declaration of regenerative agricultural systems as a state policy.

 

Do you see the transition from one All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) administration to another as an advantage?

 

Transition from the former administration has been superbly managed without rifts and rancour and the new administration is geared towards moving the state to our destined heights. The new administration is mainstreaming the culture of efficient service delivery; fiscal prudence and transparent financial management. Emphasis is on value for money in every expenditure as per our contract with our people.

 

A new code of conduct, among others, forbids public office holders from making public donations.

 

An example of the orientation towards prudence and value for money is that the new administration has re-negotiated the contracts for facility management (cleaning services for government offices) down from N137 million per month to N11 million per month, with a savings of N126 million per month or N1.512 billion per annum.

 

With the savings in one month, we have fixed the dreaded Amansea road with its nightmarish logjam, the washout portion of federal road at Onitsha, and still have change to intervene in one other terrible spot.

 

That’s the new normal for our administration: cutting waste and delivering service to the people! We maintained the policy of the past administration on “Community Choose Your Project” in which communities receive grants from the state government to execute a project or projects of priority to the community, and our administration has launched a new phase and increased the grant from N20 million to N25 million per community.

 

To act as succour, we introduced a policy that no retiree from the state civil service will be owed gratuity under our administration and have paid retirees from March to date. We have also begun, albeit gradually, to pay gratuity to pensioners, who retired since 2018 and there is hope and joy in the land. We have also approved the same policy for local governments.

 

This administration is determined to ensure that local government funds are deployed to address developmental issues at the grassroots. We submitted the 2022 revised budget to the state House of Assembly tailored to meet our ambitious infrastructural and other capital development, especially roads.

 

How about the Internally Generated Revenue department which you said must be put in order…

 

We have completely digitalized revenue collection to remove leakages and widen the bracket to meet our set targets. Anambra State Social Identity Number (ANSIDD) has been replaced with Anambra State Identity Number (ASIN) which ensures a dynamic biometric data collation structure.

 

New Digital structure would ensure long term and user friendly channels and we have commenced pilot schemes on the use of POS , USSD, Web and App channels and the payments into banks and bank ordered agents which ensures that those within the informal sector especially, can make payments seamlessly.

Successive administrations in the state had to battle with community leadership crisis and we know you may have inherited some; how are you tackling them?

About 15 community disputes which include re-instating four presidents general through the rule of law have been resolved as well as 11 community crises and successfully conducted 15 town union elections.

 

As part of government’s resolve to put an end to lingering leadership crisis in our communities, the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs has continued to engage with key stakeholders in the communities with a view to resolving the crises. Government has also ensured that communities are allowed to elect their own leaders thereby reducing the appointment of caretaker committees.

 

What exactly have been happening in area of environment given the complaint about refuse dumps?

We embarked upon the clearing and cleaning of mountainous waste dumps in Onitsha, Okpoko, Awka, Nkpor and other areas which had impeded flow of traffic, undermined commercial activities and constituted health hazard.

 

We also de-silted over one kilometre of drainage preventing the impending flood that faced the residents of Okpoko and environs. We’ve equally revised and launched a framework for the collection and evacuation of solid waste within our state, and selected waste management contractors for the 31 zones specified in the state as well as launched the tree planting campaign designed to make Anambra the greenest state in the country.

 

What are the expectations in the years ahead?

The road ahead will be bumpy and every citizen has a duty to contribute to building a livable and prosperous homeland in the context of dwindling resources. You will be called upon to bear some sacrifices. To my supporters and party members, it would mean that the state can longer afford many political appointments.

 

A nimble but effective government will be required. Ndi Anambra at home and abroad are called upon to pay their taxes to Anambra State government. We can’t build those roads to your local governments and communities with bare hands. Our covenant with our people is that your tax money must work for you.

 

For those who made a living by collecting revenue on behalf of government through various “revenue windows,” we regret that those can no longer work as the government is determined to collect every kobo due to it through digital processes.

 

Yes, oil money is out but we must survive and prosper. For those in government, it means that the state can’t afford any waste of any sort. Only expenditures that are absolutely imperative will be undertaken in our quest to ensure that every penny is devoted to give maximum value to Anambra. With the spirit of sacrifice and patriotism by all, Anambra will surely win.

 

On my part, I continue to pledge my commitment of absolute dedication and exemplary service to you.

 

As I adorn our locally made Akwete dress and wear the Anambra made shoes, eat Anambra foods and enjoy her drinks as well as drive the Anambra made cars, I signal my readiness as the chief promoter and marketer of everything produced in Anambra. In time, we will take the made in Anambra to Africa and the world.

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