On Thursday, 10 November 2011, as I made my routine perusal of our national dailies, I battled to digest various strong concerns which Nigerians have continued to express in recent times over the heightening insecurity with Boko Haram fervor, the obfuscating manoeuvres over fuel subsidy removal with a looming protest march, the death traps the nation's roads have assumed, the 'tradition' of our houses collapsing while our engineers prosper without regrets, the tension following unending election matters at the election tribunals and regular courts, the electioneering disquiet in the states where gubernatorial elections are billed to hold between now and the first quarter of 2012, our failed football which has dastardly corrupted our bid for oneness which religion unceasingly preaches with limited success but which sweet football largely renders in our clime. On and on the distressing phenomena reverberated, suggestive of a discordant polity.Such was the hovering gloom that when I read Mr. Emma Obe's reportage in the Punch Newspaper of the day, sensationally captioned 'At 20, Anambra Still Crawls', I got relieved that the state was certified alive and in motion; a positive trait in the context of an obviously threatened nation. The fluid reportage was as smooth as the reported crawling was acceptable. But for the purposes of making a few vital clarifications, I may have merely written to commend Obe more for the lucid rendering of his perception of the state than for his restrained urge to hail Governor Peter Obi whose administration has set the state in purposeful motion from the state of morbid inertia it groped in for a greater part of its early life.Anambra people, indeed Ndigbo, and many other clans across the globe who are characterised by dexterity and premium industry are hardly limited to the confines of their traditional homestead. Even when life-threatening tendencies abound in their adopted abodes, such peoples of the world hardly pull an easy withdrawal; they could retreat but seldom surrender to challenges, and their resilient nature almost always delivers successes. These people rarely forget their ancestry as they think as well as go home as often as they could. And for those whose homes are hardly traceable to specific physical locations, the home consciousness provides the enablement for familial bonding with other clansmen. Remember the 'never again '' postulation of the Jews after the notorious genocide in history. Lest I stray; it is worthy of note that Ndi-Anambra, sharing the characteristic venturous and adventurous spirit of Ndigbo, freely seek residences outside the state. It is evident that they largely make successes out of such adventures; and in some kind of the 'never again'' spirit, they now insist on repatriating and locating good parts of their proceeds home as indicators of their successes in distant lands. I say this in explanation for what Obe misconstrues as abandonment of and flight from palatial homes by Ndi-Anambra. If and when there is cause to stay home, the people come home in numbers to share the joys as well as the pains that life embodies; outside such occasions, Ndi-Anambra do what they have to do and wherever for survival. This remains a common principle traceable in the thinking of Anambrarians, and unless one understands it, one is bound to run into odds with the workings of the people.That a few civil servants in Anambra State still reside in Enugu should not make one lose sleep. It is obvious that those are people who had established in the city of Enugu before Anambra State was created, and deciding not to relocate all their interests to Awka, they have opted to shuttle between the two cities. It is however worthy of note that the distance to Awka from Enugu takes about one hour to make; it is therefore not out of place for people to travel one hour distance to work. In some states people take a lot over an hour to get to work, so Enugu-Awka journey falls within an acceptable range, if such range exists among us. Apart from appreciable physical structures which could easily be rated, Obi's greatest contribution to Anambra State remains his drive for value reorientation. By this, the governor encourages his people to jettison ostentatious and wasteful life-style and adopt modest living as a way of checking recklessness in the society. The governor leads this crusade by personally living a disarmingly modest life devoid of unnecessary pomp and flamboyance. If Anambrarians embrace this life model, the development which this government brings to the state today would endure as a foundation for a future greater Anambra State. Okechukwu Anarado,Adazi-Nnukwu, Anambra State.
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