ONE would have thought that Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State had, to the best of his ability, laboriouslyand exhaustively, responded to the contentious issues raised by the diminutive former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, on the Governor’s budgetary projections and intentions for Anambra State.

The Governor’s defence was anchored in his own logic that the Mallam had not visited Anambra State, hence, is not equipped or entitled to reach some of those conclusions.

The Governor had, few days after the publication of el-Rufai’s offensive, hosted an international media briefing to state his position and further took two full pages in ThisDay newspaper to showcase his performance in Anambra State, in addition to a full page in the back of the same paper on the same subject.

Expectedly, some people who have been living in Governor Obi’s Anambra State began to relate their individual experiences. Unlike el-Rufai who may not have visited Anambra State, one Chudi Offodile, former member of the House of Representatives who represented a constituency in Awka, and who is also an indigene and resident of Awka, the state capital, gave his own account, and ended up shedding more revealing light to the style of Governor Obi’s administration. His ultimate piece did not only amplify el-Rufai’s position but conferred credibility to it. He was not alone. Many concerned citizens of the state followed afterwards.

Their damning verdict: Anambra has a non-performing government of misplaced priorities under Governor Obi. They provided incontrovertible evidences to prove that it is a government that equates its performance with the number of times the handsome face of the Governor pops up on the pages of daily newspapers.

Since these counter-views to the Governor’s, many Anambrarians already knew that Obi does not tolerate negative media remarks and must respond. How would a governor that lives in the pages of newspapers allow himself to be overwhelmed by his traducers!

Then comes the band of sycophants of the Governor whose major syndrome is playing-to-the-gallery – a band that has no respect for facts, figures, logic, common sense or even history.

One of Obi’s sycophants, Peter Afuba, who was his Commissioner for Lands, Survey and Town Planning, who while writing in Vanguard of July 4, 2012, disagreed with Offodile for dwelling on the allegations linking the Governor to ownership of 22% of SAB Miller Breweries at Onitsha, rather than commending the Governor for attracting an industry that will create lots of jobs.

Mr. Afuba would hardly convince Anambrarians about the limits of the business interests of the Governor, just as he failed to address another Offodile allegation that Governor Obi owns two multi-billion shopping complexes in Abuja instead of Anambra State if he is keen on creating jobs for Anambra citizens. How far has the state government gone to resuscitate comatose breweries like Premier Breweries in Onitsha, Pal Breweries in Oko, another in Abagana if the intention is to create employment, rather than attracting another brewery where Obi is suspected to have interest.

It is also myopic to consider the attraction of a brewery to Anambra State as a priority in addressing the scandalous unemployment levels in the state as held by el-Rufai. It is widely known that a state like Anambra is blessed with huge agricultural centres and resources spanning the length and breadth of the state that could be triggered to generate massive direct and indirect employment opportunities for the citizens.

What has the Governor done with the Lower Anambra Irrigation project in Amor, Anambra North; rice farms in Ogboji in Aguata LGA, Omogho in Orumba North, and several farm settlements whose produce would have given the state some food resources and employment to tackle its bad shape.

Obi may simply need to listen to the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, to understand the agricultural potentials he had left untapped for six years. Yet, Obi’s master plan as told the world at the inception of his regime – the Anambra Integrated Development Strategy, ANIDS — has only one visible sign — some 14-seater buses by an intra-state transport company, ANIDS, whose ownership is as amorphous as many of such schemes in the state.

Afuba’s difficulty in defending the award of contract to the losers of the bid, may be as difficult as explaining the circumstances surrounding the impoundment of a Jeep by the police in a location in Lagos, about three years ago, reportedly laden with N250 million cash belonging to Anambra State government with some close aides of the Governor. The whopping sum was later explained away as ‘cash’provided for purchasing some vehicles for the state government. A committee set up by the House of Assembly concurred, but Anambrarians shook their heads in disbelief that such cash could be released to the street by a government that claims to be their money saver!

Pretending that the issues raised by el-Rufai could be wished away, one Joseph Anarado, who wrote from Awka, in a piece titled “Anambra: The Offodile Syndrome” on the back page of ThisDay of July 2, 2012, led the pack. Unfortunately, Anarado’s syndrome gave him away so easily because he sounded like the Governor himself by quoting information from the Governor’s correspondences that one can only imagine that the author must be writing while Obi was dictating!

The sycophancy syndrome was so manifest in that piece that it dwelt so much on the trivial but ended up confirming all the allegations and misdeeds of the Governor as alleged by the likes of Offodile. For instance, after dwelling so much on the awards won by the Governor and commendation letters from companies that the Governor attended their events, Anarado justified the cancellation of a winning bid for the construction of the Onitsha Hotel and Convention Centre.

His justification for the Governor awarding the contract to a local contractor was for reason of saving the state some N3 billion.

According to him, it became necessary after the bidding results was known for the Governor to award the contract to a local contractor (who probably did not bid) at the sum of N2 billion.

Reason was that Obi realised after a meeting with Protea Group, that a hotel of that nature and magnitude would not cost up to N5 billion as earlier thought. What Anarado has, by his vicarious defence confirmed to the reading public, is that there is no transparency in government business at Awka.

Mr. EJIKE NNAJIOFOR, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Anambra State.