Posted by By Ayogu Eze on
If a choice were to be made between peace and war, I would, without question, opt for peace.
If a choice were to be made between peace and war, I would, without question, opt for peace. In war, as in all situations of catastrophe, very little, if anything, that can aid human development can be achieved. In wartime, the only industries that thrive are those of propaganda, armament and the war effort.
Everything else suffers. The women and children are driven into the forest while men, that is, those who are foolhardy enough to parade the war-weary streets, are conscripted and thrown into the war arena, uncooked and unprepared for the steely encounter ahead. The consequences are very easy to imagine, and possibly visualize.
Economies of nations thither and seesaw in the hands of arms harlots, who move them from points of surfeit to areas of need. In this case also, nothing is achieved except mortgaging the resources and in most cases the future of the nations at the receiving end, to endless years of servitude and prayerful debt reparation.
This is why I tremble when I pick the papers these days to see some war mongers at their old game. Enugu is increasingly in the news, and for the wrong reasons. There is an undisguised effort to disrupt the peace which has become Enugu in the past couple of years.
Perceptively, there is every deliberate effort to rake up a reason for a fight. Those behind the drumbeats of war leave nobody in doubt as to their motive and their preparedness to go against the well known wisdom that a fight must necessarily be between two consenting or dissenting parties.
They leave a clear signal, by their conduct and their equally macabre and tendentious posturing, that they crave attention at all costs. Write-up after write-up, most of them not replied, dress Enugu in deliberately mutated dull colours, all in an effort to provoke a brawl, even when it has become clear that the other party has no appetite for such distractive engagements. Old and time-worn issues are brushed up and presented as fresh occurrences. Phantom issues are equally dished out to the unsuspecting public as if they really exist.
That is hardly my concern. Half-truths and outright falsehoods become stunted in the face of hard facts on the ground. My worry here is that Enugu spent some one year in the not-too-distant past warding off self-serving enemies and story tellers, who left the ball in the willful and bitter pursuit of the star player's leg, knowing as they do that once the bulwark is sidelined, the opposing team will be at their mercy.
The cost of those unnecessary and avoidable distractions can better be appreciated against the many mouth-watering development projects that have occurred in Enugu since the return of peace about three years ago. Before Enugu was enveloped by the smoke of that unnecessary controversy four years ago, over 500 kilometers of asphalt road were constructed besides nearly 30 cottage hospitals and electricity supply to over 120 communities.
During that one year, eaten up by the cankerworm of propaganda and counter propaganda, nothing meaningful was achieved. The fast-track road development, that was becoming the model in the land, almost came to a halt. Everything, including the people suffered. Little wonder there was undisguised ululation when the war drums were tucked away by those who wielded them.
Soon afterwards the government went down to business. A brand new ultra-modern university sprang up at Agbani, complemented by the equally ambitious teaching hospital within the Enugu metropolis. Then followed the International Conference Centre, the judicial headquarters complex, the New Haven dual carriage way, the Ebeano tunnel, the first in Africa, and many other breath-taking projects. The list is endless, to the glory of God and the benefit of the Enugu people!
Anyone in doubt should have listened to President Olusegun Obasanjo when he received a delegation from Enugu, led by Governor Chimaroke Nnamani himself, recently. The president reeled off the many projects of Governor Nnamani.
Has the president been equally bought over? It will be absurd for anybody to accuse the president of bias in the Enugu palaver. He spoke with so much conviction and flair that it was obvious he was talking about projects he knows as he knows the palms of his hands. Like many Nigerians who have been to Enugu, he cannot be swayed by a contrary portrayal of the achievements that have been wrought under Governor Nnamani.
Again Governor Nnamani's achievements are still not the issue here. The projects speak for themselves, and anyone in doubt should visit Enugu to see things live and direct.
The issue is that Enugu is a state that came about after many battles against injustice, criminal neglect and underdevelopment. The founding fathers had a dream of taking their destiny in their hands. They dreamed giant dreams about the gains of self determination. They forged their vision on the anvil of their collective suffering; hence they strove to lay the ground rules for peace, harmony and brotherhood. They placed a lot of premium on being each other's keeper in the hope that that will eliminate the dog-eat-dog situation that watered the ground for the more than 30-year fight to snatch Enugu from the iron grip of their more powerful and better connected brothers, who apparently profited from Enugu's backwardness.
Embedded in that dream is the rapid transformation of the socio-cultural landscape of the state through accelerated and aggressive infrastructure development.
If it is 2007 as some people want us to believe, I think we miss the point. If the first child has not started toddling, is it likely that the second would run? The Chimaroke government should be given the chance to wind up its activities, more so when it is on the home stretch already.
Is it not too late in the day to begin now to deploy rough tackles in a fight that is already won and lost, in the same way that it is unreasonable to throw punches at 2007, which is still some two cool years away?
It is not likely that Governor Nnamani will be eyeing the Lion Building a third time, even if he, like every rational being, would like to look back and see who is taking over from him. It is pure human instinct that anyone vacating a seat, even at village square meetings, would be doing so for someone, and he would like to know which elder he is actually giving way to in the final analysis.
Even then, it amounts to shadow-chasing and splitting hair over nothing to worry about what is not within man's purview. As someone who has watched the emergence of governors in Enugu for sometime now, it is one area where God has always intervened directly.
Those in the public glare or those who seem obvious to people never make it. Those who make the greatest fuss never make it either. Those who kill and maim in their quest for the seat never make it also.
At the zero hour, God raises a standard and the man after His heart, the anointed one, emerges from one unlikely corner to wear the crown, to the consternation of the self acclaimed pundits and those who think they know it all.
This is not the time to quarrel and fight. This is the time to band together. This is the time to posture and swagger to get Enugu's due from Nigeria. What is on offer is not the governorship of Enugu State or any position within Enugu. All such positions shall always be filled by Enugu citizens.
Again, has anybody noticed that all the internecine squabbles in the region have died naturally, with all forces coalescing behind the Niger Delta project? When last did we hear of Asari Dokubo or of his rambunctious and boastful co-travelers?
There were some sensible arguments in the course of the work of the National Political Reform Conference about 25% derivation for everybody based on what each area can produce. I saw a list of some minerals against the states. Only five were listed against Enugu when some had as many as 15 solid minerals.
Do not forget that the derivation will be based on what each unit brings to the table. I know Enugu has more than five solid mineral types. This is the area where a war is needed, to put the records straight to ensure that if push comes to shove, it shall get its fair share, not here at home where so much is happening already.
I suggest that the warmongers should stop hitting their heads against the wall in a failed attempt to falsify the truth in order to discredit or downplay the hair-raising accomplishments of the Nnamani government. There is no doubt that his is a performing government.
Like the rest of humanity, he is not perfect; he has his shortcomings as well. But delivery of dividends of democracy and unmatched transformation of the Enugu infrastructure are certainly not part of his shortcomings. Claims of performance are backed by solid and verifiable projects on the ground.
•Chief Eze, immediate past Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism in the Nnamani government, wrote in from Enugu.