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Although
the recent visit by a 30-man strong business delegation from Thailand to
Anambra State has come and gone, the full significance of its five-day stay in
what used to be the crime capital of South East Nigeria will linger for a long
time to come.
For obvious
reasons, the Thai Trade Mission to Anambra could be seen as the final proof
that Governor Willie Obiano’s acclaimed exploits in ridding Anambra State of
crime and criminal elements as widely reported in the media is no fluke. In a
sense, it is the longest test of the efficacy of Obiano’s prowess in finding a
lasting solution to an otherwise intractable challenge that had blighted the
stated and stunted the economic growth of the entire South Eastern region for
several decades. There is nothing hyperbolic about this claim. Anyone who is
familiar with the economic map of Nigeria can attest to the pre-eminence of
Anambra as a major hub of economic activities in West Africa in spite of the
state’s profile as a crime-ridden wasteland carved into several fiefdoms by
vicious gangsters.
It is a
known fact that like the phoenix, Ndigbo rose from the ashes of the Biafran War
to reclaim their position as the pillars of commerce and trade in Nigeria
through a robust sprouting of outstanding entrepreneurship in the industrial
and trading outposts of Onitsha and Aba. The once acclaimed Igbo ingenuity that
manifested in the flourishing of manufactured goods in the Seventies that were
aptly tagged “Igbo-made” came from these two illustrious towns in the Igbo
heartland. A carry-over of the inventive Igbo genius that sustained the
prolonged armed resistance of the region to the relentless bombardment by
Nigeria and her allies of world powers for 30 long months, the Igbo inventive
and entrepreneurial spirit was to finally surrender to relentless regimes of
arid economic policies that left it comatose for decades.
The colossal
dispossessions of the war followed by a climate of scorched earth economic
policies targeted at areas where they had a comparative advantage meant that an
otherwise proud and industrious people had to seek diverse outlets for the
kinetic energy that lay bottled up in them. The middle to late Seventies
witnessed the runt of this energy show itself in the sprouting of auto-parts
manufacturing companies in Nnewi while the bulk of the energy found expression
in the successive waves of criminal regimes which came to a climax with the
rise of Boys Oyeah – the first feeble attempt by Onitsha to cleanse itself of
vicious criminal overlords. Boys Oyeah was an epochal revolt by a society that
had grown weary of the ineptitude of its leadership. That was in the eighties. History
was to repeat itself again a decade later when Chief Godwin Okeke of G.U.O
Group of companies led the popular Onitsha Market Amalgamated Traders
Association (OMATTA) in another revolt against men of the underworld. It was
again another indictment on the government of the day. The Aba equivalent was
to come decades later with the emergence of the dreaded Bakassi Boys whose
cancerous influence spread across Igboland like brushfire and left the region
soaked in blood spilled from extra-judicial killings.
A continued
lack of vision and endless tentativeness by successive administrations ensured
that Anambra State which hosts the largest pool of self-driven Igbos never
quite shrugged off the specter of criminality which later took a sophisticated
shape at the turn of the century when Niger Delta militants began to keep
expatriate oil workers in the region in captivity in exchange for huge ransoms.
Criminal elements in Onitsha soon saw in it a more creative way to make more
money from Anambra’s many rich indigenes without the usual spilling of blood
that came with violent armed robbery. In came the kidnapping business – the
ugly phenomenon that drove away investors and anything of value from Anambra
State as many well-to-do citizens relocated their businesses and loved ones out
of the state.
Indeed, for
a long period of time, Onitsha which hosts the largest retail market in West
Africa and the surrounding commercial areas were better known for the
scandalous headlines that spewed forth from them. For the same reason, Upper
Iweka, which gained popularity for the preponderance of many business concerns
with territorial ambitions that stretch across Africa, soon assumed the status
of the crime capital of the South East. For many decades, it was difficult to
remember Onitsha for anything beyond the absurd. Even when the bizarre security
outfit known as Bakassi Boys took roots in Onitsha, things took a grotesque
shape with the horrendous public execution of crime suspects that looked very
much like what ISIS has brought to the world stage today. In the intervening
years, many Ndi Anambra slowly became disinclined from returning home. They were disenchanted by the inability of the government of
the day to secure them from the torment of kidnappers and violent armed robbers.
Sadly, what the state lost to their disinclination became the gain of other
states, especially the neighbouring states. The massive growth in real estate
in Asaba and Enugu and other equidistant cities can be traced to this scenario
as wealthy Anambra indigenes sought to set up half-way houses to home.
It is
within this milieu, this bleak landscape, this marshland of broken dreams; that
one begins to fully understand what Governor Willie Obiano has done in Anambra
State. That a 30-man Trade Delegation from Thailand could spend five long days
in Anambra, moving around freely and visiting Onitsha of all places without an
incident, speaks with unmistakable clarity of the change that has come upon
Anambra State. There is a climate of freedom that pervades the state. No longer
do we see long security convoys trailing wealthy citizens who spend heavy sums
on personal security each time they decide to visit home. Where they exist at
all, the personages simply retain them to maintain their social status; not that
they expect any surprises as was once the case. All around the state, citizens
now come out of their homes at whatever time of day and night to test their new
freedom. There is a growing feeling everywhere that this miraculous change has
come to stay; that Anambra is on the rise again.
But
seriously, that Willie Obiano has thoroughly cleansed the Augean Stable that was
Anambra State in less than one year of his regime, speaks to the dearth of
quality leadership that the state had experienced in the last thirty years. One
can’t help but wonder the priorities of those before him. What mattered most to
them? What could be more important to the chief security officer of a state
than the safety of lives and property of the citizenry? And what exactly did
Chief Willie Obiano do to conjure the miracle that is the New Anambra State?
These are the questions that will continue to ring through the portals of time.
James Eze
writes from Ifite, Awka
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