Anambra Decides: Realistic or Not?(Episode 3)
Our Top 10 promises from Valentine Ozigbo and Ifeanyi Ubah
Valentine Ozigbo
On the 26th of June 2021, Mr. Valentine Ozigbo emerged as the People’s Democratic Party candidate for the 2021 Anambra State governorship election holding on November 6, 2021. However, his victory was challenged in court by one of the aspirants that believed the primary election wasn’t free and fair. On Thursday, October 21, 2021, the supreme court threw out all the challenges to Ozigbo’s candidacy and awarded damages of N5 million against “meddlesome interloper” Senator Ugochukwu Uba.
Valentine Ozigbo has a 40-page publicly available policy document named “Ka Anambra Chawapu: The Manifesto”, the promises in the document are based on 6 areas namely; Technology, Infrastructure, Environment, Jobs, Prosperity, and Social Investment.
The former CEO of Transcorp Hotels, vision is to create and accelerate abundant prosperity and significantly improve the wellbeing of Ndi Anambra. His mission as stated in his manifesto is to deploy the best creative and innovative talents in developing solutions that will tackle the developmental challenges of Anambra State in a transparent and accountable manner
AdvoKC has continued to pore through Mr. Valentine’s position papers, rallies, debates, interviews to collate all his promises.
For this series, we identified Ozigbo’s 10 promises that are important but seem difficult to accomplish.
1. “We will embark on a modern Light rail network connecting Anambra with major towns in the southeast region, to enable free flow of goods and services and establish Anambra as the premium business hub”
2. “We will aggressively rollout an Anambra State Water Scheme, with the aim of providing clean and potable pipe-borne water for everyone in our state by 2025.”
3. “We will aggressively roll out new primary healthcare centers across the state, with electronic health management systems, adequate renewable power supply, and trained practitioners. We will target 50 new primary healthcare centers spread over all wards by the end of 2022”
4. “We will create an Employment Trust Fund that provides work-study programs and internships for students.”
5. “My administration will build a transparent, interactive, and digital open governance platform, where citizens of Anambra can track budgets and expenditures, submit issues for resolution, and make recommendations directly to the Governor’s desk.”
6. “We will build tourist parks and recreation centers in each local government area.”
7. “We will collect low, simple, and regular taxes and levies; progressively expand data capturing and compliance; reduce the influence of political stakeholders in revenue collection; and increase monthly IGR to a minimum of N10 billion”
8. “We will aggressively pursue teacher capacity development policies by establishing teacher training institute to equip teachers with modern skills”
9. “We will integrate automation into government services. Deliver public services online (through web portals and via email) such that residents can begin and end a majority of transactions without physical interface with government officials within two years of the Administration.”
10. “We will establish modern bus parks and bus shelters in major towns and cities in the state starting with Awka, Onitsha, Nnewi, and Ekwulobia”.
Ifeanyi Ubah
Ifeanyi Ubah emerged as the candidate of Young Progressive Party (YPP) unopposed in June 2021. The senator representing Anambra South who won a case last year accusing him of forging his NECO certificate is among the latest graduates of law from Baze University.
Ifeanyi Ubah who calls himself the “practicalist” has a 72-page policy document tagged “My 10 Asset Agenda”, the manifesto covers 10 areas namely; Governance reforms, Economy trade, and investment, Agriculture and food security, Security, Harnessing the diaspora Anambra economy, Entrepreneurship, and MSMEs, Science and Technovation, Sports and Entertainment.
The Nnewi-born politician promise to inspire confidence, resuscitate ardent patriotism, provide hope for the disillusioned youth so that Ndi-Anambra can confidently look in the face of the future in a shared enterprise for the purpose of attaining commercial and corporate achievements.
We dug through Ifeanyi’s loaded manifesto and other media to identify 10 campaign promises for this series. The following are the top 10 promises that were analyzed by our researchers;
1. We shall recruit, train, and properly remunerate 5,000 youths annually under the new ASVT
2. Teachers’ salaries to be paid as in Finland and Sweden
3. Increase the contribution of oil and gas to GDP in Anambra from 0% to 5% by 2026
4. Establishment of Specialized state MSMEs microfinance bank
5. We shall build a light rail to connect the 3 senatorial districts and their commercial hubs
6. Build a film village
7. Build a sport village
8. Conduct Local government election within six months in office and follow the provisions of the law
9. Liaise with the Judicial service commission to establish specialized courts and Multi-Door Courts to hasten the dispensation of justice
10. Quarterly publication of the audited accounts of the state expenditures.