In his book "The Problem with Nigeria" the irrepressible literary icon, Prof Chinua Achebe, states with brutal honesty that the problem with Nigeria "was a failure of leadership."
That book published in the early 80's, when the dark clouds of military dictatorship overshadowed the 2nd Republic and curtailed it, is chockfull of insights and clinical political analyses of why Nigeria, with all its abundant human and natural resources, is still an economic dwarf in the comity of nations.
That leadership had failed in Nigeria was as self-evident as Harmattan at Christmas, even before Achebe blew his whistle. This made it more a case of "the falling apple," than a discovery. Billions saw the apple fall before Isaac Newton saw it and wondered why. And because Newton asked the right question, mankind discovered the law of gravity. In the same vein, Achebe gave thought to what Nigerians had come to accept as a bumbling political ride to an unknown destination and pinpointed the problem – failure of leadership.
Political wisdom, however, has no copyright. So even as Prof. Achebe analyzed the problem – like a lab scientist diagnosing a disease – it was up to others, who share his concern, to find a solution to the problem. At the same time history proves that demanding epochs throw up men who shoulder the challenges of the time, and leave their imprints in the scrolls of history. Men and women, with a messianic complex, are willing to rise up and fill the leadership vacuum. Like the ancient Italian proverb puts it "the right man comes at the right season." One of such men, who has come at the right season, is the 49 year-old governor of Nigeria's Akwa Ibom State, Chief Godswill Obot Akpabio.
"What he has transformed Uyo, the state capital into," says Ubong Affia, a management consultant, "can only be compared to what Paris was like decades ago and all over the world the talk was 'See Paris and die.'" Paris was so beautiful that it was considered inappropriate for any man to live and die without seeing Paris. Paris was considered to be the culmination of man's inventive, artistic and creative genius. Relating this to Uyo and comparing it to Paris in those days is no idle talk. When Senator Ibrahim Mantu, former Deputy President of the Senate, came to Uyo recently he confessed that he had not visited the town in a long while, but that so many people told him "you must come to Uyo and see things for yourself." It is a sentiment so many other visitors who visit Uyo express.
Mantu, said that on his arrival at the Ibom International Airport, the beauty of the airport awed him. But he had a greater surprise as they drove from the airport to the town, and he discovered that the "entire length of the road was lit with streetlights."
"Uyo (which means 'fruit' in Ibibio, the local language) appears to have ripened in the hands of the present administration of Governor Akpabio," says Udobong Mbeye, a Peoples Democratic Party stalwart. Uyo has actually come a long way from the rural local government it was during the civil war (1967-1980). Its nightline is now a galaxy of streetlights running through most of the streets, and most of the major junctions have fountains or decorations. Dual carriageways, constructed by the Akpabio Administration, form arteries which run across the heart of the town to link it with neighboring towns.
Blessing Johnson, the managing director of Savvy Lemons Travel and Tours, a travel agency based in Uyo, says he understands the importance of the dual carriageways. He found himself in Itu local government area, which is on the other side of the state and shares a boundary with Cross River State, at a time pretty close to his flight. He needed to make to it the airport in about twenty minutes. "I made it in fifteen minutes," he says, "because all the roads I needed to take to the airport were dual carriageways and so I stepped on the gas and let it run. My Toyota Camry responded well and I made it." When he got to the airport his agitated brother, who was worried that he would not make the flight was shocked. Blessing told him "it was possible to do that because of what Governor Akpabio had done in terms of road development."
The Uyo to Itu road snakes its way in majestic beauty through the undulating hills of Itu local government area. The sight of the rolling hills is awesome and picturesque. As far as your eyes can see, the rising and falling hills form rows of giant ridges in a cathedral of green. At sunset, the sun turns into a beautiful bowl of crimson, behind it the clouds form a blanket of wool and the undulating hills look like static waves in an ocean of green – it is a breathtaking picture of beauty that could make the finest artist and painter envious.
As you approach Uyo on this road, the concentric flyovers await you. Like the hills behind, three of these flyovers rise and fall in majestic grandeur. At their bases there are a lot of spectacular fountains. "Paparrazi" scurry around the area persuading visitors to pose behind the fountains for pictures. At night, thousands turn up to savour the breathtaking sight of the fountains and the flyovers, and take pictures.
Take a trot down the road and you encounter a fenced site and a beehive of activities. An Olympic-size stadium is under construction! It is designed to be one of the best stadia in Nigeria, with the ability to host sporting events of international standard and to pass whatever security and safety tests for such international competitions. It was located at the surburbs so that it would not lead to traffic congestion in the inner city. "Its present location," says Engr Etido Inyang, Special Adviser on Technical Matters, "is the best and meets all standard qualifications for a stadium of such magnitude."
Some distance from the stadium site is West Africa's only e-library. The edifice decked in blue colors rises up the skyline and sits amidst a garden of green. It is a one-stop spot for all ICT business and transactions, and when fully operational hopes to provide the capital city with internet facility and open internet research opportunities for students, scholars and professionals. It would also house millions of e-books under licenses, which have already been obtained. Technical handyman, Engr Inyang, posits that it would also make inroads into rural areas by using trucks fitted like mobile cybercafés to go to those areas and let the people experience the ICT revolution.
In Uyo town the Cineplex at the Tropicana Entertainment Centre has become a star attraction. With six cinema halls with standard, ultra-modern screens showing films simultaneously through ICT links with Hollywood, it witnesses a steady stream of human traffic each day. "This was one project, which drew the ire of many critics when it was conceived," Engr Inyang explains. Such critics maintained that Akwa Ibom State did not need a second five-star hotel and the project should be abandoned.
The Governor's position that the entire state did not have up to five hundred hotel rooms and therefore could not sustain tourism, cut no ice with them. They maintained that Akwa Ibom people would not have the money to go there to watch films. With a gate fee of just a hundred Naira (cut down to this figure from one thousand by Governor Akpabio) those under the United Nation's poverty line measurement index, troop to the Tropicana every night. More so, says Governor Akpabio, this project when completed will employ over four thousand people directly and provide economic and commercial opportunities to a host of others. The main hotel, conceived as a 16 storey edifice, is on its twelfth floor.
Uyo was not always the city of lights and life. Apart from its past somnolent status it was scourged by a terrible flooding problem because it is a tableland. Whenever it rained, floodwaters would rise to high heavens on roads and compound problems for motorists. When Colonel Bako was the military administrator of the state, over twenty years ago, the Ministry of Works thought they had found a solution to the problem and informed him of their "breakthrough." Bako excitedly informed the press and challenged them that if they ever found flooding there, they should inform him.
Two days after Bako's boast, the heavens opened up its bowel and rained mercilessly. Tony Ita Etim, (currently the South South Bureau Chief of Daily Champion, then a boyish cub reporter), was on his way to Oron Road when he came across the "river." Tony smelled news because he has a good nose for news. He told the commercial motorcyclist who was "ferrying" him to make a detour to Government House. On reaching there, he broke through the security cauldron and met the Military Administrator coming out of an Executive Council Meeting. He sidled up to him, before the security men could stop him, and told Bako that there was flood in the area contrary to his promise to Akwa Ibom people.
A bemused Bako said it was not possible and told Tony to ride with him in his official car to the flooding site. He directed the Commissioner of Works to accompany him to the site and explain to him what happened to the "breakthrough." What happened was that the construction they did to hold the water failed. Tony had a siren-blowing ride with the Military Administrator... and a good news story.
Twenty years latter, Akwa Ibom has the story that Mr Etim, who now lives in Port Harcourt, was pursuing. Governor Akpabio has found a solution to the flooding problem. It is the underground pipe-jacking drainage technology, the first of its kind in Africa. It involves pipes running thirty meters underground and collecting water into a giant trough known as a manhole. The manhole, which serves as a reservoir, pours the water into a river nearby with such force that it could power a turbine. When President Goodluck Jonathan saw it, he declared that "he had not seen anything like this before," and commended Akpabio for the high quality of his projects.
According to Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, "Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy." Akpabio has manifested great character in initiating free and compulsory education from primary to senior secondary school and free medical treatment for pregnant women, babies up to five years and the aged above 65 years. He has proved himself a strategist too in the focused industrialization of Akwa Ibom State.
He has proved himself to be an exception to Achebe's postulation of leadership failure. Four powerful witnesses testify to this and rest the argument in his favor. They are President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, ("Akpabio is a man of proven integrity who has made Nigeria and the entire Africa proud, he has established love and selfless service to the people"); Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, ("Akpabio's free education is the most important legacy because without education, none of us can develop our innate abilities and ideas to a level of being useful to ourselves, community, state, country and the whole world"); General Abdulsalami Abubakar, former Head of State, ("Certainly, and without any iota of doubt, even your enemies would accept that you have brought development to Akwa Ibom State."); and General Ibrahim Babangida, Ex-Nigerian Military President ("Akpabio has aggregated the will of the people, he is really God's will for Akwa Ibom"). The Christian Good Book sums it up nicely, "in the mouths of two or more witnesses, every word shall be established."
Anietie John is of the Institute of Public Communications and Leadership, Uyo.
Vanguard Nigeria