Obiano invokes the spirit of ‘Igbo-made’

Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, has declared his intention to revive the once famous inventive spirit of the Igbo people and chart a new course for accelerated de­velopment of the state.

Delivering a special ad­dress to mark his first an­niversary in office at an elaborate ceremony in Awka, Chief Obiano ob­served: “Apart from the problem of insecurity, there is no greater obstacle to the full manifestation of our people’s famous can-do spirit than the challenge of electricity supply. For sev­eral decades, our people’s inherent inventive genius that sparkled through the dark years of the civil war appeared to have been cut off by a failure of leader­ship.”

The Igbo people, he regretted, failed “to har­ness this ingenuity, which showed itself shortly after the civil war, in the manu­facture of quality house­hold products that were generally referred to as ‘Igbo-made’. Ndi Anam­bra, I stand before you to­day to invoke the spirit of ‘Igbo-made’ and to reclaim that genius! Yes! We must bring that spirit back! Ndi b ‘anyi, okwa anyi ga eme ya?”

Casting a long look back at the beginning of his first year in office, Gover­nor Obiano noted that 365 days ago, he led the state on a journey of colour­ful dreams. “But we have travelled through the stony path of reality. We have experienced a tremendous leap of the imagination. We have gazed into the eyes of tomorrow… and we have returned to this great place, after 365 days… with a great harvest and a bou­quet of new dreams!” he enthused.

Paying glowing tribute to his predecessor in of­fice, Mr. Peter Obi, Obia­no acknowledged that he inherited a good founda­tion his administration had worked assiduously to improve upon. He de­clared that he had kept his campaign promise of con­tinuing, completing and commissioning all projects he inherited from former Governor Obi, adding that “there is not one project that we inherited that we have abandoned. Not one!”

Speaking on his re­sounding success in the war against criminals in Anambra State, the gover­nor observed that he had always known that one of the greatest gifts anyone could “possibly give Ndi Anambra is the gift of a se­cure environment – a place where our people’s famous enterprise and creative en­ergy can find the greatest expression. A place where the redeeming light that we bear will shine the brightest and illuminate the pathway for the greatness of oth­ers…”

Obiano declared that he had pulled down physi­cal and psychological em­pires, saying: “When those bulldozers mow down the warehouses where kidnap­pers hold their victims in captivity, when we bring down the mansions they built with the blood money they made from their hu­man cargoes, we pull at the psychological root of their business; we hack at the very source of their evil energy. Today, we breathe a new air of freedom! Today, we give our loved ones out in marriage under the wise gaze of our elders in the village. Today, we feel free to bring our children home from the cities to listen to the fantastic tales of their grandmothers under the gaze of the full moon. Ndi b’anyi, Anambra adigok­wanu mma! Oburo ezio­kwu?”

The event was attended by prominent indigenes of Anambra State, including former vice president, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, former secretary general of Com­monwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku and billionaire businessman, Prince Arthur Eze.