By Vincent Ujumadu, Awka

Chief Jude Emecheta is the chief executive officer, CEO, of the state –owned Anambra State Signage Agency, ANSA.
Recently, Emecheta along with some people formed the Obiano Support Group, which is aimed at projecting the vision and achievements of the Anambra State governor to the people at the grass root. In this interview, Emecheta spoke on the reasons behind the formation of the group and its relationship with the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in the state. Excerpts.

What is the reason behind the formation of the Willie Obiano Support Group and who is qualified to be a member?

The Obiano Support Group is made up of people, both Anambra people and non Anambra who share the vision and mission of Governor Willie Obiano. His vision that is anchored on the four pillars of his administration. We saw those visions as ambitions that are realizable and which could move Anambra State forward and we thought we should support him by standing by him and telling people what His Excellency is doing.

Chief Jude Emecheta

Some people believe the group may ultimately transform to a campaign organization. Is it correct?

No. We have a political party, APGA, which is the campaign organization that will run the governor’s campaign for his reelection. So the Obiano Support Group can only be a catalyst to APGA by gingering party members to do the needful by mobilizing people before the election. We don’t have to wait until the election comes before we begin to tell the people what the governor has been doing. This group has taken it upon itself to tell our people what the governor has been doing in Anambra State. It is really an advocacy group.

Some people would see it as propaganda machinery. What do you think?

We have discovered that some people have done so much for their state, but at the end of the day it is perceived as if the governor has not done anything because people didn’t know what is on the ground. I will give you an example. We have rural areas in Anambra where the people there don’t even read newspapers or listen to radio. They only wake up in the morning and go to their farms and all they believe is what they are told. And if after two or three years, they see a road constructed in their community, they may not appreciate its importance and so they need to be told that it is their governor that has made movement easy for them. The immediate past governor faced the same problem of people believing that he wasn’t doing anything when he was doing so much. That almost cost him his reelection until he began to write books to showcase what the administration was doing. We don’t want that to happen again.

What is the structure of this support group?

We have Board of Trustees, the state executive and coordinators at the local government levels with their executives. We also have coordinators in all the 326 wards. It has the same structure as APGA, but we are not taking the job of APGA. As a member of APGA, what I can do is to tell the party what we are doing in the field? We will be carrying out our programmes in collaboration with APGA in a coordinated manner.

This administration has been in office for about 17 months. What can you say have been the achievements of the governor, especially when some people in opposition are saying they have not seen what the governor has done so far?

Those in opposition should first of all understand what governance is about. I hear it too when some people say the governor has only been signing MOU. As a business man looking for investors, I can go out to look for such investors and bring them to sign MOU with them. Those that have signed MOU with Anambra State government are serious -minded people and within a short time, the impact of such agreements will be felt in our state. The funds to be invested will come from outside Anambra State and those attracting the business will also put in their funds. So we believe that in the next one to two years, they will begin to yield fruits because those involved are people who are tested and trusted. Government cannot sign MOU with people who are frivolous as all of them were properly verified before they were signed.

May we know some of the MoU already signed?

ANSIPA (Anambra State Investment Promotion Agency) has details of all the investments. But what I know is that many of them will soon take off.

In less than two years, another governorship election will be conducted in the state. What do you think the governor will do to ensure his reelection?

Let him keep doing what he is doing. He has set his target in agriculture, industrialization, commerce and industry and oil and gas. By the time the next election comes, the people would have bought into his vision and seen the need to return him for a second tenure.

Many projects inherited by this administration appear to have been abandoned. What is responsible, especially when the governor promised to continue with all the projects when he was sworn into office?

No project has been abandoned. The much I know is that the amount of funds coming to Anambra from the Federation Account has gone down. At the time former governor Peter Obi was leaving, crude oil was still selling above $100 per barrel and it has dropped such that the amount of money coming to the state has reduced drastically. What the state government has done is to prioritize its projects. Every project is important, but there are some that are more important than others. For the purposes of security, social and economic values, there are roads you must do so that evacuation of farm produce from the rural areas will be easy. There are bridges that must be done, like the ones His Excellency is doing in Awka which have both ecstatic and economic values for the state capital. What I am saying therefore is that no road project has been abandoned in the state.

Rather, what is happening is that because of the dwindling resources, roads that are of greater importance are being handled. The government is also working hard to improve on the IGR (Internally Generated Revenue) of the state and our people must support government by paying their taxes and levies. It is unfortunate that the only people who pay their taxes willingly are the civil servants. The tax consultants that were sent to Onitsha could not achieve much as the traders would dash them money and they walk away. But now government has formed a synergy with the leadership of the markets, who pay their taxes and levies into designated accounts. That is why the IGR has moved from about N550 million to about N1.3billion a month. With the efforts the governor is making, the revenue will improve further.

There is also the worrisome issue of local government expenditure where it is observed that nothing much is happening despite the huge amount each local government is allocated from the Federation Account. What do you think will be the solution to the lull in the LG system?

I am an advocate for the scrapping of the local government system. If you make the local governments fully autonomous by removing the state/LG joint account, you would have created Emperors among the local government chairmen. We have seen it happen before. Between 1998 and 2002 when we had the first set of elected local government chairmen, they behaved like Lords because they were collecting their allocations directly from Abuja. We know them and we saw what they did.

Most projects the state government is doing are meant for the local governments as they are located in one local government or the other. That is why the joint account is necessary. But if you allow the local governments to control all the funds, the EFCC will have so much on their hands.

Between 1999 and 2002, the then Governor Chinwoke Nbadinuju was here suffering for lack of funds while the local government chairmen were busy fomenting trouble and forming opposition groups because they were controlling enormous resources but had little to show on their local governments. I advocate that the governors should be allowed to appoint administrators for the local governments who will be responsible to the governor to execute projects in their areas. The constitution should allow the governors to create development areas on their own and use the administrators to develop the entire state.

The Anambra Signage Agency which you are the CEO sometime ago removed bill boards not paid for, but we are seeing many of them returning. Does it mean the owners are now paying?

There is a plan by the state government to reposition the agency. The agency is in a position to generate more revenue for the state. Because of some inadequacies in the old law establishing the agency, it was difficult for it to operate fully. With the new law, all illegal bill boards will be removed. There will be improved data collection measures and government has made funds available to us to improve its operations. Members of the Outdoor Advertizing Practitioners Association have been of great assistance to us in our efforts to sanitize the system. Before the end of this year, people will see a new Signage Agency in Anambra State.