Soon after Owelle Rochas Okorocha’s election as Governor of Imo State, I congratulated him through a newspaper article part of which read as follows: “Ndi Imo have given Rochas a pedestal no politician in Igboland has achieved in recent times and that is mass passion.

What will Rochas make of it? The choice is his.”
Truth be told, the mass of Imo people and even some persons outside Imo had very high expectations from Rochas. In just three months of his Governorship however, the euphoria in the state is waning. That is to be expected after every election and not just in Nigeria as the reality of governance dawns. However, comments are coming too quick on the performance and direction of the Rochas’ government in just under 100 days.

The Igbo people are not too difficult to govern if you are able to show them you mean well. I will cite two examples – Zik and Mbakwe. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe came into Nigerian politics with about the best educational attainment among his peers and also with the most exposed world view anyone at the time could boast of. Zik made at least two fundamental contributions to the Igbo race. The first was psychological: he brought a sense of “We can do it. We are excellent.

We have confidence in ourselves and who we are.” The second was in education. Zik whose core philosophy was show the light so the people can find the way, did show the way and we rose to the occasion. He stimulated a generation of men following his example to seek the golden fleece. Following the inspiration of Zik, even rather impoverished Igbo communities built their own schools. Communities became challenged. By 1950, and especially in the 1960s, the difference in the educational levels of the peoples on the coast of Nigeria (who had earlier fraternity with the white man’s education) and those in the Igbo hinterland had been considerably bridged. This was just in twenty years or so. And what Zik really did was to provide a conceptual framework and the inspiration that fed the ‘I-can-do’ spirit.

Dee Sam Mbakwe remains the best post –civil war leader of the Igbo in terms of his commitment, sincerity of purpose and tangible achievements. I put him after Zik. After one year of Chief Achike Udenwa administration I had to do a study of the Mbakwe government, published as THE GLORIOUS MBAKWE ERA in 2002, with the hope that people could learn and take corrections. Governance is for the common good and not a parochial enterprise. A government seeking to succeed must do at least four things which are visible in Mbakwe’s government. These are: first, identify what needs the people have, pursue those needs of the people sincerely, take all the components of the state as to be served and not a section of the state. In other words, be even – handed, and fourthly, if the Governor sees an area or direction he wants to take the people, which the people are not yet conscious of, he must make efforts to convince them to go ahead. In effect, the governor must lead and not rule.

Recently, we honoured Mbakwe’s secretary of Government Professor Enoch Anyanwu with a symposium at the multipurpose hall. At that event, I said: In four glorious years, as stated in my book, THE GLORIOUS MBAKWE ERA, a government conceived, built (and in most cases people actually started using), the Imo State University with two functional campuses at Etiti and Aba and another three planned for Awomama, Uvuru and Umuahia, Concorde Hotel Owerri, Resin and Paint Mbaise, Imo Modern Poultry Avutu, Paper Packaging Owerre-Ebiri, Integrated Aluminium Products Naze, Sachs Hercules Naze, Floor Tiles Nsu, Abadaba Lake Resort, Enyimba Hotels Aba, Aluminium Extrusion Inyishi, Golden Guinea Breweries modernization and expansion Umuahia, Metallurgical Complex Aba, Metallurgical Complex Umuahia, Golden Chicken Ogwe, three Power stations at Amaraku, Izombe and Mbalano, Waste Recycling Plant Ofeme, among others. There were also several roads creatively identified and built, urban renewal programs, regional water schemes, etc. These are only a few of what that government achieved in a few sectors, and in just four years.

What is clear from the Mbakwe era is the originality of the programmes. It is clear that serious thinking went into what that government did. Based on the situation at the time, priorities were set and pursued with commitment and there were linkages between each of these activities.

What we learn from the above is that it is possible to be better than we have been. Zik gave us education, but he never really built schools for us nor offered each of us scholarships. He showed us the light and we found the way. Mbakwe gave us electricity, with Imo State having perhaps the most rural electricity access in Nigeria, but Mbakwe never brought poles and transformers to over 90% of our villages. He showed us the light and we found the way. The commonest projects of communal launch in the 1980s and up to the 90s in Imo state was electricity related. Zik and Mbakwe tapped into our Igbo self-help communal characteristics. It is the search of what next and how next, and the crises of direction in Imo state, that has given rise to the situation in which most of our communal development activities are now limited to the churches, rebuilding churches or anything the priests ask us to do.

Government has never and will never do everything for the Igbo. What we need are leaders, and not rulers.
The challenge for Rochas is to interpret his era and challenge us his people who showered so much passion and are therefore legitimately entitled to much expectation from him. He ought to understand and tap into our strengths, weaknesses and needs. We have the opportunity to build on our areas of strengths.

Imo state has suffered much financial and manpower outflow in the last years, contributing to the collapse of the agricultural, industrial, construction and other sectors. Many of our rich people have reduced the rate at which they even visit home or build houses in the villages for fear of crime. That also has reduced rural and urban employment and income. Deficit financial flow into Imo State has to be reversed as a matter of priority. We basically need to bring money into Imo state and the money is in the Imo and Igbo Diaspora, in and outside Nigeria.

When I see the United Kingdom and how they reformed their education sector to obtain serious funds flow into the education systems and economy, when I see the state of Israel and how they have packaged religious tourism and pilgrimage and how much it brings into Israel, when I see the English premiership and its transformation compared to the Italian and Spanish leagues that were the rave some years ago. When I see what United Arab Emirates has done with Dubai as tourism and shopping hub and what they are doing now with Abu Dhabi as intellectual, and education hub, I see possibilities of what a people committed and enlightened can do.

When I look across the Niger and see the vision of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State and the Asaba Airport and the engagement of the Business group in Onitsha and Nnewi, I see what a government focused can achieve. When we have created the pre-conditions for a thriving tourism sector adapted to contemporary Imo and Nigeria, even without exceptional natural endowments, we can learn from the French and their Eifel Tower in Paris or the Chinese and their Great Wall and recent human creations as the Water Cube and the Bird Nest. But not an imaginary tourism industry that offers only obscure hotels and immorality as some people will like to see Owerri, which cannot be the point of commencement to drive economic and transformation, as Cross River state ought be learning with the embarrassment Tinapa may have become.

Imo can become the education centre of Nigeria. Rochas can engage the churches in this regard, being the most alive institutions in Imo state. He can borrow from Osun state and her model of University. He can use the Mbakwe model in electricity to pipe water into every Imo village in the next four year. History beckons at Governor Rochas Okorocha. He has aroused passion among our people and what he does with it will define his own fame or infamy. I’d rather all my Governors were leaders and live in fame. The challenge before Rochas calls for clear headed thinking and having a holistic picture of what he wants to do, when and how to do them.

Professor Chinedum Nwajiuba Lectures at Imo State University, Owerri.



SUN NEWSPAPER

Beautiful article. Every governor should learn from this writeup, not jusr Rochas.

Very Constructive article