C DON ADINUBA
1. We would like to alert Anambra people and other Nigerians about the resolve of a handful of so-called opposition politicians to use the social media, which mostly do not have gatekeepers and fact checkers, to create fear in the people about the security situation in the state. Though the 2021 gubernatorial election is about two years away, these politicians have long started to campaign with absolute falsehoods and simulated reports.
2. One of the primary targets of these political propagandists is security where Anambra has in the last four years consistently been adjudged the safest state in Nigeria and is now widely considered the safest place in West and Central Africa. It is a measure of the high level of safety and security which Anambra is enjoying that it is the only state in Nigeria which in the last five years has not recorded a single bank robbery.
3. The latest antics of the opposition are claims that Reverend Father Edward Obiora, a practising lawyer in Awka, was kidnapped at the weekend and that 15 school children were kidnapped at Central School, Awkuzu, in Oyi Local Government Area yesterday. These are blatantly false claims. Father Edward was at the court yesterday, Monday, October 28, in Awka to handle a case, and he was free and healthy and hearty. Mrs Josephine Okwenna, the Head Teacher at Awkuzu Central School has described the social media account that 15 pupils in his school were kidnapped as totally false and embarrassing and a great disservice to both the school and the Awkuzu community.
4. Anambra people are enjoined to watch out for more salacious reports about the security situation in their state. The opposition propagandists have even planned to stage manage kidnappings for ransom in the state, so that investors and other well meaning people will treat our dear homeland as a pariah.
5. Let our people at home and elsewhere continue to treat such simulated shows and reports and those who sponsor them with the contempt they deserve. Kidnapping seems to be the second nature of these politicians who want to take our state to the primitive age of mankind. After all, they introduced kidnapping in the Nigerian political space when they abducted in 2003 Governor Chris Ngige, a fellow party member, and forged a letter claiming that he had resigned from office.
6. It amounts to dethronement of reason for a small clique of politicians whom the great Professor Chinua Achebe memorably called renegades to de-market the very state they want to hijack by all means and rule like a failed fiefdom. They are determined to drag Anambra, which is today’s Nigeria’s fastest developing state, down back to the level of a failed state when they were in power and could not pay salaries, compelling schools to shut down for one year. They want Anambra State to become a lawless and bankrupt fiefdom where they can easily burn down in broad daylight institutions and symbols of the state like the Government House, House of Assembly and the Judicial Complex, as they did for a whole three days in November, 2003.
7. Ndi Anambra and, indeed, all Nigerians are assured once again that never again will Anambra be associated with state capture or state failure. Nor will it ever again be described as a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom. On the contrary, it will continue to be a perfect example of law and order and rapid development. The launch on Friday, October 11 , of Operation Kpochapu 2, which saw the super smart Mobile Surveillance System (MSS) for the first time in Africa, the security situation can only continue to improve, and not deteriorate. This is good for all because it will assist our people realize their vision of making their beloved state the first place investors will consider for business.
God bless Anambra State, the Light of the Nation.
C. Don Adinuba – Commissioner for Information & Public Enlightenment.