One other yr across the solar is all the time a milestone to have fun. And when an excellent character, a singular chief, completes this existential course, there’s much more motive to revel and provides due to the Almighty Father. By the way, a character who cares little for mundane revelry achieved this milestone immediately.
He’s unassuming. Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Lawrence Ugwuanyi, the fast previous governor of Enugu State, born on March 20, 1964, clocks 61 immediately.
Your Excellency, as governor, you have been intentional in your sheer dexterity and imaginative and prescient to positively contact the lives of the folks and provides them a way of belonging.
These people have been largely the unusual residents within the rural areas, the long-neglected and underprivileged, who you describe because the true heroes of democracy.
They got here out en masse and stood patiently beneath the solar and within the rain to forged their votes on your overwhelming election and re-election in 2015 and 2019, respectively.
In actualising this imaginative and prescient, you have been centered, strategic and radical in deploying authorities providers in the direction of creating honest and equal alternative for each keen citizen to make a dwelling and create wealth, educate our youngsters, and revel in life in a peaceable and safe atmosphere.
You have been additionally intentional, daring, and resolute in your declaratory inaugural tackle in 2015. You made it clear that Enugu State, beneath your watch, can pay particular consideration to rural growth. You justified your stance on the obtrusive proven fact that “nearly all of our folks reside within the rural areas.” The driving pressure was all about your ardour for the folks’s wellbeing.
As a grassroots/people-oriented chief with milk of human kindness, you by no means deviated out of your imaginative and prescient to alleviate the sufferings of the folks and produce democracy dividends to their doorsteps, no matter their social standing or distant areas.
Using on dependable integrity, you gave Enugu State peace, safety, and good governance, however the avalanche of challenges your administration encountered.
The very fact stays that you simply stepped into the large sneakers of management on the fallacious time. You grew to become governor of Enugu State in 2015 when Enugu’s purse grew leaner and Nigeria’s economic system was in recession as federal allocations dwindled to an all-time low.
The resultant impact of the tough financial realities was a 30 per cent drastic discount of what used to come back in, as federal allocations, to the coffers of the state authorities earlier than you assumed workplace.
As one of many few governors, beneath the then President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, who have been in a position to pay employees’ salaries when 27 states couldn’t pay, one appreciates your agency dedication to the wellbeing of the folks, in view of the truth that Enugu is a civil service state-oriented economic system.
You paid the N30,000 minimal wage and its consequential adjustment to the state’s workforce when a lot of your colleagues couldn’t pay.
You exempted market merchants within the state from paying Private Revenue Tax and Market Tax and went forward to launch a novel merchants’ empowerment scheme, which assisted them to develop their companies.
One equally applauds the management prowess you deployed in preserving the wheels of presidency shifting and making certain that Enugu grew to become one of many most secure states within the nation.
Aside from the 2 cycles of financial recession inside 5 years, we’re all witnesses to different unexpected challenges that confronted your administration, which ate deep into the lean sources of the state. These embody the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (which introduced a significant setback to your entire world when it comes to growth and development), the #EndSARS protests, and the herder/farmer clashes, amongst different nationwide safety challenges.
Extra worrisome is the truth that the socio-economic and safety insurance policies of the then federal authorities weren’t far-reaching to surmount the nation’s challenges or assure sustainable platforms for the then governors to actualise their visions absolutely.
As an illustration, the month-to-month federal allocations to the states beneath President Buhari’s administration have doubled considerably, if not tripled, for the reason that inception of the administration of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu – a significant breakthrough that has enabled the current governors to hold out sundry infrastructural tasks with ease of their numerous states.
At numerous fora, in latest occasions, President Tinubu made it clear that current governors now obtain sufficient funds from the federation account to work.
As governor and an ardent promoter of nationwide unity and rules of fairness, justice and equity, you performed nationwide politics to the height alongside your colleagues within the G5 household, which noticed the emergence of a Southerner, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, as Nigeria’s President, immediately.
Your Excellency, one remembers that in your inaugural tackle in 2015, you made a disclosure that “a political affiliate lately advised me that this isn’t one of the best of occasions to be the Governor of Enugu State”.
You went additional to state that the then outgoing Governor, Sullivan Chime, identified in the course of the thanksgiving Mass to mark the tip of his profitable administration that “Enugu’s purse is rising leaner as federal allocations dwindle to an all-time low.”
Not solely that you simply have been the one governor within the historical past of Enugu State to witness two nationwide financial recessions inside the area of 5 years within the lifetime of your administration, together with different ravaging challenges, you have been equally the primary governor since 1999 to control Enugu on the political platform (Peoples Democratic Social gathering, PDP) that’s in opposition to the ruling occasion on the nationwide degree (All Progressives Congress, APC). This additionally got here with its inherent challenges and setbacks when it comes to federal patronages and concerns.
Regardless of all these points that barked at you as governor, you remained undaunted, centered, and visionary. You by no means deviated out of your dedication to the folks’s well-being. You ensured that you simply judiciously utilised the state’s meagre sources at your disposal in impacting lives positively, reworking the agricultural areas and entrenching peace, safety, and good governance whereas working a authorities with a human face.
Your uncommon putting traits of humility, godliness, peaceable disposition, compassion, benevolence, kindness, openness, simplicity, imaginative and prescient, onerous work and inclusion have been the pillars that protected the folks, guided your administration all through the stormy years and ensured the successes it recorded.
Moreover being among the many few governors who paid the then N30,000 minimal wage and its consequential adjustment to the civil servants repeatedly, the preponderance of state’s pensioners comprising these from different South East states who served the previous states with Enugu as their capital, additionally obtained their pensions and different advantages beneath your watch. What an enormous monetary obligation that ate deep into the state’s lean sources!
In fulfilment of your guarantees in your inaugural tackle to pay particular consideration to rural growth, and to equip and modernise Nsukka – a college city based over half a century in the past and second largest city in Enugu State, your administration executed most of its growth tasks in Nsukka zone, and within the rural areas, whereas additionally deploying the state’s meager sources to execute and keep new and current services in Enugu city respectively.
Although the agricultural growth drive didn’t go down properly with some Enugu city residents, your ardour for the wellbeing of Enugu indigenes dwelling in rural communities, the long-neglected, the lowly and underprivileged, and so on, was unprecedented and chargeable for that nice affect you made within the rural areas.
The feats have been propelled by your conscience, your dint of affection and compassion for the folks and your gravitas to strike a stability and construct the Enugu State of the founding fathers’ dream, the place each indigene of the state, irrespective of sophistication, faith or political affliction is given equal rights and entry to dividends of democracy, and lives in a peaceable and safe atmosphere.
At this time, by your administration’s peace and grassroots growth initiatives, you made it doable that communities in Enugu State that had not skilled democracy dividends earlier than did so.
In making certain speedy rural growth drive, human empowerment, and brighter future for youthful era and people but unborn, you initiated, established, and nurtured the State College of Medical and Utilized Sciences (SUMAS), Igbo-Eno, Enugu State, situated in Nsukka zone.
This milestone has inscribed your identify within the annals of historical past because the second chief, after Zik of Africa, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, to convey a college to Nsukka land. The Nice Zik of blessed reminiscence attracted the College of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) to Nsukka.
Once more, in your foresightedness in the direction of the significance of schooling and its powers of reworking and galvanising generational change, positively, you went additional to draw a federal polytechnic to Nsukka zone, in Ohodo, Igbo-Etiti Native Authorities Space, often called the Federal Polytechnic Ohodo.
These greater establishments are doing exceedingly nice and have offered Enugu State indigenes veritable platforms to discover, harness, and mildew the longer term academically.
SUMAS, particularly, has offered the teeming youths of Enugu State the platform for elevated entry to high quality college schooling in skilled programs reminiscent of medication.
These milestones are amongst these people-centered achievements of yours that may outlive you, and historical past will stay type to you for deeming it mandatory to take a position closely in the way forward for the folks, particularly the youthful era and people but unborn.
Whereas Enugu was battling with survival intuition following the hostile results of the nation’s financial meltdown and state’s dwindling sources, you have been in a position to provoke and execute people-oriented insurance policies, run pleasant tax regime and create beneficial enterprise atmosphere for the folks. You equally entrenched peace and safety, ran inclusive governance, and nonetheless executed quite a few tasks within the state.
These tasks, too quite a few to say, embody: The reconstructed and reworked 11km historic, historic and undulating Enugu Milliken Hill-Ngwo-Ninth Mile highway – the state’s curler coaster; the constructed 12km Opi-Nsukka twin carriageway – a state-of-the-art highway with underground drainage system fitted with road and site visitors lights as much as the UNN gate.
Different tasks embody, the primary flyover bridge by Enugu State Authorities situated at T-junction, Nike Lake Highway, Enugu; the 31km Udenu Ring Highway constructed with two bridges; a befitting State Secretariat Annex at Nsukka with an ultra-modern Convention Centre adjoining to it; the 5,000-seat Township Stadium; the ultra-modern Banquet Corridor on the Outdated Authorities Lodge, GRA, Enugu additionally reworked with the development of Annex, 10 items of Government Visitor Home (Duplex) and 24 items of Visitor Flats, together with leisure services, and so on.
Others embody, the 13km Nike Lake junction-Concord Property-Amorji Nike-Adoration Pilgrimage Centre-Orie Emene highway linking the ever-busy Abakpa Nike with Emene satellite tv for pc city in Enugu East LGA; the Nike Lake Highway and Abakpa Nike Highway in Enugu East LGA; the Airport Roundabout/Orie-Emene/ St. Patrick’s Faculty/Eke-Obinagu Highway in Enugu East LGA; completely different roads rehabilitated in Enugu Metropolis, and within the college city of Nsukka to offer the world a significant facelift, and so on.
In opening up the agricultural areas, your administration constructed quite a few roads and different facilities. These embody the 8.8km Nkalagu-Eha Amufu highway in Isi-Uzo LGA, uncared for for over 35 years, the 26.66km Ukpabi-Nimbo-Ugbene -Ajima-Eziani highway in Uzo-Uwani LGA (RAMP-2); the 22.443km Neke-Mbu-Ogbodu Aba-Obollo Etiti inter-community highway linking Isi-Uzo and Udenu LGAs (RAMP-2); the 8.2km Inyi-Akpugoeze highway in Oji River LGA; Kind 3 Healthcare Centres constructed and outfitted throughout the three senatorial zones; large Amenity Ward Facility situated on the upgraded Ogrute Common Hospital, Enugu Ezike, Igbo-Eze North LGA; quite a few academic services throughout the state, reminiscent of classroom blocks, college furnishings, and so on.
Considered one of your biggest achievements for Nsukka zone was the stepping down of 30MVA in Nsukka from the 132KV Makurdi Feeder by Nationwide Built-in Energy Mission (NIPP), which you facilitated. This milestone has successfully improved the standard of electrical energy provide to the world and has additionally enhanced the expansion of enterprise actions.
On safety, which is prime to the folks’s security and wellbeing, despite the state’s lean sources, your administration bought and donated 100 items of Innoson Car Manufacturing (IVM) patrol vans with communication devices to the safety companies to assist their operations, employed 1,700 forest guards (first within the Southeast zone), repositioned the Vigilante/Neighbourhood Watch teams, and bought over 260 safety autos for his or her neighborhood policing operations, and constructed the 76 Police Cellular Power Squadron facility at Ekwegbe, Nsukka, and so on.
Many different feats have been recorded in schooling, well being, safety, judiciary, agriculture, sports activities, fireplace service, rural growth, empowerment and scholarship schemes, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), housing growth, funding promotion vis-à-vis Enugu’s fame and excellent scores on Ease of Doing Enterprise in Nigeria, beneath your watch.
You’re the man behind the itemizing of Enugu as an oil producing state.
You ensured an unprecedented, harmonious working relationship with the opposite two arms of presidency (legislature and judiciary), the state workforce and the leaders of the organized labour from the inception of your administration in 2015 to the tip, in 2023.
As a singular, humble, and God-fearing chief, you continue to keep a peaceable relationship together with your predecessors, successor, Dr. Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, and different leaders and members of political, spiritual, and conventional establishments.
Your excellent inter-human relationship with the folks, the excessive and the low, regardless of the betrayals in the course of the 2023 normal elections by these you assisted and empowered, is exemplary.
The world is conscious of your philanthropic gestures, particularly the rural-based medical programme, that renders free medical providers to underprivileged sufferers with surgical circumstances however lack funds for remedies, amongst others.
This noiseless free medical programme, based on the final data, has efficiently saved the lifetime of over 3,000 folks by the “Gburugburu Free Surgical procedure Programme”. Thanks for this life-saving initiative.
At this time, it’s all a few worthy celebration in honour of man, peacemaker, phenomenal and visionary chief, nationalist and bridge-builder with distinctive management qualities and wealthy wealth of political expertise, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
Your Excellency, as you clock 61 immediately, keep in mind that your good deeds have all the time and can all the time acquire you divine favour earlier than God. Additionally, keep in mind that these 680 indigent engineering college students of Institute of Administration and Expertise, (IMT), Enugu and Enugu State Polytechnic, Iwollo, your administration supplied scholarships to; the 22 post-secondary college indigent college students your administration despatched to check at Mewar College, India; the 40 Enugu State college students your administration secured absolutely funded postgraduate scholarships to check in numerous elements of Europe, America, Australia and Asia by the Mentorship Masterclass of Enugu State Scholarship Scheme and Loans Board valued at over N3 billion; grateful people, households, teams, establishments and communities you touched their lives privately and publicly, and so on, will proceed to wish for you fervently and need you peace, pleasure, good well being, lengthy life and lots of extra years of selfless service to your folks, our nice nation Nigeria and humanity.
At this time’s event, subsequently goes an extended solution to place you on a pedestal of greatness as one who has discovered superb favour in God’s goodness and mercy.
Glad 61st Birthday, Your Excellency, and stay blessed!
Amoke, Senior Particular Assistant (SSA) to Enugu State Governor on Media (2015-2023), writes from Enugu
