Chief Willie Obiano, the APGA flag-bearer in the coming gubernatorial election in Anambra State has once again justified the confidence of the party chieftains in him and that of his teeming supporters when he put up a 5-Star performance at the Debate organized for all gubernatorial candidates, Thursday, which was generally adjudged as a redirection of attention to issues by a cross section of the live audience at the Women’s Development Centre, Awka, venue of the debate.
Obiano who arrived a few minutes behind time due to the delay caused by a minor accident on the road soon shrugged off the usual unease associated with arriving behind one’s opponents in a debate and instantly made his presence felt with his direct approach to issues.
The Debate which had 7 gubernatorial candidates representing APGA, AA, ACD, AD, ACPN, APC and CPP in attendance was essentially a contest between Obiano and Senator Chris Ngige of the APC. Senator Ngige who arrived 45 minutes late in the first round of debates organized by Silverbird television the previous week seemed to have turned over the new leaf as he arrived the venue of the Nigerian Elections Debate Group (NEDG) early this time.
In spite of his punctuality however, the debate which was shown live on AIT network television was a keen contest in which Obiano showed greater understanding and mastery of the current state of affairs in Anambra State and a clear vision of where to take the state to, while Ngige showed more of his crafty political side.
In a debate where all the candidates demonstrated commendable passion and enthusiasm, Obiano showed himself the clear leader in terms of clear articulation of carefully thought-out solutions to the developmental challenges of the state, point after point.
The candidates were grilled on niggling issues of development including security, unemployment, industrialization, education, revenue generation, shelter, erosion menace as well as what would constitute their personal priorities if they earned the people’s mandate to lead Anambra State.
In his opening remarks, Senator Ngige told the audience that he wanted a return to the government House in Awka to enable him complete the remaining 70% of his blueprint which he could not conclude when his last stint in government was terminated by a competent court. Obiano on the other hand began by apologizing for his late arrival and progressed briskly to his well-crafted Blueprint which revolves around Agriculture, Industrialization, Trade and Commerce and Oil & Gas. He explained that these four pillars would serve as trigger to his planned revolution for Anambra State.
Obiano also demonstrated a firmer mastery of the intricacies of procuring or generating the necessary funds that would drive his development agenda than the rest of the candidates. For instance, when the moderator alleged that Anambra State was in debt and asked him what he would do if elected.
“That is what will distinguish me from my other colleagues. Your statement on the debt profile of Anambra State is not correct. You need to understand the nature of the funds that Anambra State works with,” he explained, pointing out that most of the funds the state government works with come from donor agencies and other parties that have a counterpart arrangement with the state.
Dismissing the notion that the state worked with loans, Obiano argued that not much is generated from internal revenue while the allocation from the federal government would not be sufficient for the execution of capital projects in the state after the payment of recurrent expenditure.
“Our Internally Generated Revenue stands at N.6billion, and that is a significant growth from N200m where it was in the days of the administration that was in place before the current administration of Governor Peter Obi,” Chief Obiano explained.
The APGA candidate also bested his APC counterpart on the issue of security. While Senator Ngige choose the usual rigmarole of career politicians to answer the question of how he would tackle security challenges in the state, making the right noises about the constitutional guarantee of the security of every citizen, Chief Obiano maintained that he would combat security problems through job creation which his Four Pillars of development would engender in the state. His position is that when the youths are in gainfully employed they would be less inclined to take to crime.
Meanwhile, all the candidates agreed that soil erosion constitutes a serious menace to the state. However, while Senator Ngige plans to plant trees and build drainages in the state to checkmate erosion, Chief Obiano believes that the State House of Assembly should be encouraged to come up with a proper legislation on erosion that would discourage the citizens from engaging in practices that would aggravate the situation. In addition, he maintained that the state government alone cannot fight erosion menace in Anambra and that it requires a level of participation from foreign donors. “And I am probably the only one amongst the contestants here who has the capacity and the contacts to attract these people to Anambra State,” he further declared.
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