This is the season of 100 Days In Office, and it is being celebrated by most of Nigeria’s freshman governors, eager to showcase their achievements. This gives many public relations handlers opportunities to laud the performances of their principals, however modest.
The first 100-Days concept came out of “Cent Jours,” or Hundred Days, from the return of exiled Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to Paris, to his final defeat in the hands of the British Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, after which Louis XVIII regained the French throne.
But Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who became America’s President in 1933, unintentionally introduced the idea into America. The raft of 15 pieces of legislation that he introduced within his first 100 days in office became the corpus of his New Deal policies that reversed America’s Great Depression and brought an economic revival.
The rapid pace of introduction of the new legislation, and the implementation and effects of the new economic policies caught the imagination of Americans. It became a measure of the performance of American presidents.
The world picked it up from when President John F. Kennedy turned it into a showboat, though his first 100 days in office was nearly marred by the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba sponsored by America’s Central Intelligence Agency.
Focus on the first 100 days of Governor Emeka Ihedioha of Imo State in this column is informed by the nostalgia of the four and half years this writer spent in Owerri in the late 1980s: The odds favoured Imo State for sentimental reasons.
When reporting for duty as a Federal Government official, yours truly experienced what you could describe as Great Expectations, because Owerri had been declared by then Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s military government as the cleanest state capital in Nigeria. There was a curiosity to see what the cleanest state capital would look like.
Just before Buhari became Nigeria’s Head of State, “60 Minutes,” a magazine programme of America’s CBS Television network, described Lagos, then the Federal Capital of Nigeria, as a filthy place.
You can understand the eagerness to see what gave Owerri the edge to clinch the “cleanest-city” prize. It wasn’t a disappointment at all: Entering Owerri by road, after a flight from Lagos to Enugu, was sheer delight.
As the vehicle went past the Aluminium Extrusion Industry on Amaimo Road, and wended its way from Okigwe Road in Owerri, you could see clean roads, and neat houses, with well-manicured “oke osisi” or flowers, all over the place. You could describe Owerri as a Garden City.
There was the swinging nightlife of the town: From the White House Hotel owned by genial and kind-hearted Zeb Phillips, to the poolside of Imo Concorde Hotel, where you listened to a younger Charlie Boy Oputa sing “Nwata Miss,” and old-time musician, Celestine Obiakor, sing Ebenezer Obey tunes for the pleasure of the Yoruba in the audience.
But if you chose to stay indoors at night, you listened to musician Bright Chimezie, whose Zigima Sound dominated the television and radio airwaves. Chimezie danced vigorously, as he joked about the police of “Ala Bekee,” who raised needless alarm just because he was eating “ogbono” soup, a Nigerian delicacy.
You can imagine the sense of violation one felt, to hear that Owerri, where one had thought to retire to write books, was looking nowhere close to its reputation of a neat city. Reports indicated that downtown Douglas Road was looking like a dunghill.
You can imagine the sense of delight one felt with Governor Emeka Ihedioha’s determination to bring back those good old days. It is apposite that the first concerns of his government have to do with “antiseptic” issues of the environment and good health. Just as well, because health is wealth.
Some of the government’s immediate actions included the removal of garbage that had been allowed to accumulate within Greater Owerri, and the desilting of clogged drainage and gutters. The cause of the recent flooding of the Avu-Egbema Road that leads to Adapalm Palm Plantation should be remedied immediately.
Other actions are the revamping of Otamiri and other water supply projects, rehabilitation of some hospitals, schools, and roads, initiation of process for construction of 380 kilometres of roads throughout the state, and efforts to control the erosion that is common throughout the South-East.
The governor must be commended for coming up with the Integrated Infrastructural Development master plan, which will link Owerri to the industrial hubs of Umuahia and Aba, as well as the farmsteads of Okigwe and Orlu.
In addition to rehabilitation of the Dan Anyiam Stadium, Owerri, the government plans to build a mini-stadium in each of the 27 local governments in the state. The governor also appointed a new coach for the Heartland Football Club.
Somehow, the government persuaded aid agencies, like the World Bank, UNICEF, the United States Agency for International Development, and Britain’s Department for International Development, to return to Imo State.
Some steps taken in the commercial sector include the revival of Government Owned Enterprises, like the Avutu Poultry Farm, established by the iconic Sam Mbakwe, Imo State’s first civilian governor, Adapalm in Ohaji, and the Rubber Estate in Obitti, Ohaji.
The good governance initiatives of the government included the enhancement of its procurement processes, pension payment reforms through the use of biometric data, and introduction of the Treasury Single Account to track government funds.
As he is committed to complying with the requirements of the National Financial Intelligence Unit for local governments to be financially autonomous, Governor Ihedioha must however endeavour to pay outstanding salaries of workers.
Above all, he must keep faith with the people of Imo State, who rejected the protege and son-in-law of an All Progressives Congress governor, and chose him and his Peoples Democratic Party. The best way to do that is to implement the promises he made in his Inaugural Speech.
He needs to activate the theme in that speech, which he titled, “Together We Will Rebuild Imo.” It is time to establish the Facility Management Agency that he proposed to manage government assets, so that they do not go to the dogs.
His promised qualitative education that will emphasise Science, Technical and Vocational training in Imo State should be redeemed like yesterday. This is critical to preparing the next generation of Imo citizens for the Fourth Industrial Revolution that has already arrived at Nigeria’s doorstep.
The “Agricultural City,” an industrial park for agro-allied and agricultural industries, geared towards achieving self-sufficiency in food production and food security, should be a priority. In addition to food, agriculture can provide cash crops for export, raw materials for industry, employment for the people, and tax revenue for government.
Significantly, Ihedioha will profit from the counsel in a Letter to the Editor written to The PUNCH, last week, wherein the writer suggested that the Imo State Government should harness the flow of Urashi River and construct a hydropower plant that would provide electricity for Ohaji/Egbema, Orsu, and Orlu Local Government Areas.
However, he must avoid being distracted by the “sins” of former Governor Rochas Okorocha. He could set up a state “EFCC,” as the Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde has done, and let Charly Boy and other volunteers to deal with the protagonists of “iberiberism.”
He should just concentrate on the job at hand.
