Open Letter To Gov Of Anambra State
Mr. William Mmaduabuchukwu Obiano, M.Sc.
Executive Governor of Anambra State
Office of the Anambra Governor
Awka Government House, Anambra State, Nigeria
Your Excellency,
Anambra Electorates Demand For Governance Scorecard Of Your Excellency’s 1st Term Government
(Intersociety: Onitsha Nigeria: 23rd October 2017)-Sir, we respectfully congratulate you for emerging the second term governorship candidate of your political party (APGA) and recognition of same by the INEC for 18th November 2017 Governorship Election in Anambra State, which in only 26 days away. As Your Excellency may still recall, the People of Anambra State had on 16th and 30th November 2013 voted for you with 180, 000 popular votes to govern them and generally oversea their affairs and welfare in trust.
The governance responsibilities given to Your Excellency by Anambra People through the hallowed electoral mandate include caring for the collective welfare as well provision and management of the citizens’ security and safety, government machinery and its assets and liabilities. These are all geared towards general growth, development and advancement of the State. The electoral mandate so given led to Your Excellency’s swearing in or administration of oaths of office and allegiance on 17th March 2014 for a four year term.
This month of October 2017 marks 43 months or three years and seven months since Your Excellency had been on seat as the Executive Governor of Anambra State. Today, Your Excellency is back on campaign train, seeking for people’s votes for another four year term. As you know Sir, a house can never be built without a foundation; neither can yam seeds be sown without tilling soil.
The summary of Your Excellency’s electoral contract with Anambra Electorates is called electoral value language which Your Excellency must inexcusably speak to them as follows: who Your Excellency is to them again, (2) why Your Excellency is seeking for their votes for another term and what Your Excellency did with the first freely given electoral mandate; and (3) what Your Excellency is going to do with their fresh mandate if given
Conversely and condemnably, Your Excellency has already commenced your second term governorship campaign or bid without formally letting the Anambra People know the performance index or account of the past 43 months of Your Excellency’s governance of the State (scorecard). Your Excellency must not forget that Anambra State and the People of the State are not a personal property of Your Excellency, but handed over to Your Excellency in trust for effective governance and management through electoral mandate of 16th and 30th November 2013 with mandate of periodic accountability.
It is on account of the foregoing, Sir that we resolved to remind Your Excellency to inexcusably do the needful, by presenting to the People of Anambra State, before the end of this month of October, the comprehensive scorecard of how Your Excellency has fared or governed the State in trust in the past 43 months (17th March 2014-31st of October 2017). Failure to do the needful, Sir, will send wrong signals about Your Excellency and gravely darken Your Excellency’s second term bid.
Below, Sir is a guide containing core areas of governance which the People of the State and other core stakeholders in the Anambra Social Project inexcusably expect Your Excellency to concentrate in the scorecard presentation under our firm demand:
- Inherited Public Assets & Liabilities
Sir, what is the state of Anambra State’s statutory local and foreign loans, totaling $45m (N8.8B: using N195 per $USD in 2015) and N3.2B respectively=N12B? See DMO Report of 30th June 2015. In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law, how much are the total foreign and local debts of Anambra State as at end of October 2017? Did they not increase geometrically since 14th March 2014?
What is the present fate of Anambra State’s bond investments of $156m or N26.5B stocked in Diamond, Fidelity and Access Banks as at 14th March 2014? In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law; are these foreign bonds investments still safe? If yes, what are their present total dollar values and interests? If no, what happened to them or where are they?
Further, there were certified State/MDAs Cash Balances, totaling N28.1B as at 14th March 2014. That is to say: (a) State Cash Book Balance of N5.3B, (b) State Subsidy Account Balance of N5.12B, (c) Ecological Funds Account Balance of N2.1B, (d) Special Project Account Balance of N1.92B and (e) LGA-SureP-Social Service Account Balance of N1.73B
Others are: (f) JAAC Account Balances of N1.38B, (g) Ministry of Lands Account Balance of N640M, (h) Fidelity Bank Balances of N1.19B, (i) Set Aside Account Balance of N4.64B, (j) Ministry of Works Account Balance of N1.16B, (l) Ministry of Youths & Sports Balance of N425M, (m) Millennium Dev. Goals (MDG/CGS) Account Balance of N198M, (n) Ministry of Pub. Utilities, Water Resources & Rural Development Account Balance of N107M and (o) Unutilized UBEC Account Balance of N2.1B, all with grand total of N28.1B.
How were these left over cash balances of N28.1B expended since March 2014 by Your Excellency’s Administration? Were they used for public good and good governance used for the contrary? If used for public good and good governance of the State, how, when and where were they used?
What is the present fate of the N27B worth of Anambra State investments in several quoted companies and properties across the State and beyond as at 14th March 2014 as clearly highlighted in the handover note and documents by former Governor Peter Obi to Your Excellency?
That is to say: (a) Nigerian Independent Power Project (NIPP)- N9B, (b) Orient Petroleum PLC-N4B, (c) Onitsha Hotel-N1B, (d) Agulu Lake Hotel-N1B, (e) Awka Shopping Mall-N900M, (f) Nnewi Shopping Mall-N600M, (g) Onitsha Shopping Mall (Shoprite)-N1B, (h) Intafat Beverages or Hero Breweries, Onitsha (N3.5B +$10M) and (i) Onitsha Business Park 1 & 2-N600M.
Others are: (j) Anambra State Independent Power Generating Company Ltd-N250M, (k) E-Force Ltd-N126M, (l) Emenite Ltd-N750M, (m) Quoted Investment Portfolio-350M, (n) NSIA-Anambra State Contribution (State +LGA)-N1.5B, (o) Anambra State Investment with Bank of Industry to support SMEs in the State-N500M, (p) Investment with Bank of Industry to support Micro Credit Bank in Anambra State-N500M, (q) Investment with Bank of Agric to support Anambra Farmers- N480M and (r) Commercial Agric Scheme-N1B; all totalingN27B.
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law, are these remarkable State investments still safe or have they been tempered with in part or in whole? Specifically, what is the fate of Anambra’s N1B stake in Onitsha Hotel joint Project? Has it been sold and privately pocketed or is it still intact? What is the progress of work at Nnewi and Awka Shopping Malls as well as Agulu Hotel projects where Anambra State’s total sum of N2.5B is stocked and trapped? What is the fate of Onitsha Business Park 1 & 2 where the State’s N600M is stocked and trapped?
- Cabinet Size, Wage Bill & Governance Cost
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law: (a) what is the cabinet size of Your Excellency’s Government of Anambra State and State Executive Council? (b) Specifically, how many Senior Special Assistants (SSAs), Special Assistants (SAs), Executive Assistants (EAs) and Personal Assistants (Pas) are presently serving in Your Excellency’s Government or since the inception of this Administration on 17th March 2014? (c) How many Special Advisers and Commissioners are serving in Your Excellency’s Cabinet? (d)How many of the former are allocated to the constitutionally nonexistent “Office of the First Lady of Anambra State”?
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law, what is Your Excellency’s monthly security votes and how much has been collected from the State coffers since 14th March 2014 or in the past 43 months? Is it true, in Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law that “the First Lady of Anambra State” has a monthly security votes running into tens of millions of naira monthly; some say “N250M monthly”? If true, how much have she squandered in the past 43 months as “Anambra State First Lady’s Security Votes”?
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law, how much is the State’s monthly wage bill (i.e. total government machinery expenditures capturing government overheads, security votes and remunerations (salaries and allowances) of the entire State workforce and political appointees of the Government of Anambra State? How much does the State generate monthly from federal allocations, internally generated revenues and non capital receipts (excluding loans and overdrafts)? How much of the State resources are allocated monthly for capital development of the State especially in the area of key infrastructures?
- Infrastructural Development & Social Services Delivery
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law, what is the state of Anambra Network of Roads since 14th March 2014? What of the present state of many, if not most of the asphalted and completed roads across the State before April 2014? What is the state of Anambra’s major drainages and water ways such as Gwata Food Drainage in Awka, SAKAMORI and Nwangene River Drainages in Ogbaru and Onitsha South? Also what is the state of public gutters and medium and small scale flood drainages across the State especially in the State urban centers?
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law, what are the total kilometers of uncompleted Trunk B and Trunk C (LGA) Roads inherited from the Obi Administration? What were their stages of completion as at the time they were inherited? How much were their contract sums? What are their names, lengths or kilometers and locations? How many of them have been completed and commissioned and when were they completed and commissioned? How many kilometers of Trunk A, Trunk B and Trunk C Roads had been awarded, funded and completed across the State three Senatorial Districts by Your Excellency’s Administration since March 2014?
In Onitsha Zone (comprising Nkpor, Ogidi, Odume Layout, Omagba 1 &2, Woliwo Layout, Awada, Ugbuagba, Obosi, Fegge, Inland Town, Odoakpu, Nsugbe, Nkwelle, Okpoko, Iyiowa Layout, Odor-Rubber, Onwuasoanya and Oba; how many street/urban and inter-LGA Roads left un-completed by the Obi Administration have been completed by Your Excellency’s Administration since March 2014? What are their names and locations (if any)? How many new kilometers of same categories of Roads have been awarded, funded and completed in the areas by Your Excellency’s Administration since March 2014?
Using the same two set of questions (how many uncompleted roads left by the Obi Administration have been completed and how many new kilometers awarded and completed since March 2014); how many of these are the case with Nnewi Zone (Nnewi North and South, Oraifite, Nnobi, Awka-etiti, Akwa-ukwu and Ozubulu etc), Ihiala Zone (Okija, Ihiala, Ihembosi, Utu, Lilu, Azia, etc), Aguata Zone (Uga, Achina, Umuchu, Igboukwu, Ikenga, Oraeri, Nkpologwu, Ekwulobia, Oko, Umunze and other parts of Orumba North and South)?
How many of same are the case with Anaocha Zone (Agukwu Nri, Mbaukwu, Agulu, Nanka, Akwaeze, Obeledu etc), Alor Zone ( Ideani, Uke, Orakwu, etc), Awka Zone (Mgbakwu, Ugbene, etc), Njikoka Zone (Nimo, Abagana, Abatete, Nawfia, Umudioka, Umunachi, etc) and Omambala Zone?
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law, what are the total contractual debts owed to public infrastructure contractors presently in the State or since 14th March 2014? How much of these are owed road contractors in the State for jobs already completed since March 2014 till date? If 50% of uncompleted road contracts inherited from the Obi Administration have truly been completed by Your Excellency’s Administration as recently claimed, have the contractors that handled them been fully paid? Were those roads statistically and geographically verified?
What is the state of social services and their delivery in the State since March 2014? How much funds or development grants have been attracted to the State from overseas development agencies since March 2014; especially in the areas of youths and skill acquisition, primary healthcare, safe water and safe environment, education and health? When was the last time social development incentives such as school and health institution buses, medical equipments, library and lab materials, power generators, ICT equipments and cash donations were extended or donated to the State’s mission, public and selected key private education and health institutions since March 2014?
- Fiscal (Budgets) Discipline & Accountability
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law, how much is the average monthly bulk revenue receipts of the State (excluding loans) and how much has been received by the State under Your Excellency since end of March 2014 excluding the inherited cash balances earlier highlighted above? How much of the generated non loan funds have been spent since March 2014? Specifically, how much of the State’s received funds have been spent in (a) government Overheads? (b) Personnel costs or Salaries? (c) Allowances? (d) Debts servicing? (e) Security Votes and (f) Capital Expenditures?
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Law and Man, how much have Your Excellency’s Administration borrowed locally and externally since March 2014 and what were such loans used for or how and where were they spent? Corruption is a cankerworm and a deadly virus in the circle of public governance in Nigeria, what is Your Excellency’s Administration policy trust on corruption and what has the Administration done about it since March 2014?
- Foreign Investments & Agric Development
In Your Excellency’s honour or before God, Man and Law, are there truly State Government attracted foreign investment inflows into the State since March 2014? If yes, where are they located in the State and what do they produce? Are they wholly expatriate owned or indigenous-expatriate owned or PPP owned? What is the State Government’s stakes and provided incentives in such foreign investments if they truly exist anywhere in the State? How many skilled and unskilled indigenes of Anambra State are employed in the said foreign investments if truly exist?
Is Your Excellency’s Administration truly involved in public sector and funded industrialization of agriculture in the State since March 2014? Where are the acres of land and their locations where pumpkin leaves (Ugu) are being harvested and processed for export to the tune of $5M a year or $410,000 per month; translating to N1.53B per annum? What about “Anambra Rice Revolution”? Does Anambra State Government truly have industrial rice farms anywhere in the State? If yes, where are their locations and how many skilled and unskilled laborers of Anambra origin or other Nigerians are in their present labor force?
- Security & Welfare Of Anambra People
Sir, going by Section 14 (2) (b) of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution and in Your Excellency’s capacity as the Chief Executive, Security and Welfare Officer of Anambra State and its People, what has been Your Excellency and the Administration’s scorecard on security and welfare of the Anambra People? In other words, how has it been with respect to provision of tangible and intangible security and welfare to Anambra People since March 2014?
In the course of managing violent crimes especially armed robbery, abduction and murder in the State, how many arrested citizens accused rightly or wrongly were tortured and killed in police (including SARS) custody since March 2014? How many have been convicted or are in awaiting trial custody? What is the state of criminal investigation as regards to violent crimes or crimes against persons and properties under Your Excellency’s Administration? What is the fate of disappeared and missing persons in policing custody in the State?
Under Your Excellency’s watch in the State, over 110 unarmed and defenseless Igbo citizens were massacred by Your Excellency’s Anambra State Joint Security Taskforce on 29th and 30th May 2016 at Nkpor and Onitsha with a spillover massacre of 30 others in Asaba; likewise scores of others slain on 30th August, 2nd and 17th December 2015 in Onitsha and Awka. What has Your Excellency done about these chilling mass killings in order to fish out the killers, pay adequate compensations to slain victims’ families and confess Your Excellency’s conspiratorial roles in the mass killings?
In terms of citizens’ welfare, what has Your Excellency done with an army of destitute roaming every nook and cranny of Anambra urban centers especially in Onitsha and environs? Are Your Excellency and Your Excellency’s Commissioners not aware that all the leg-over bridges in the State especially those at Uga Junction, Bridgehead and Upper Iweka have been taken over by an army of destitute with most of their children not going to schools? What is the present number of out-of-school children in the State and what is Your Excellency’s Administration doing about them?
- N127B Inherited Road Contract Debts From Former Gov Obi Administration
In Your Excellency’s honor or before God, Man and Law, are there strong and irrefutable evidence showing that some of the inherited contract debts since 14th March 2014 are tied to unpaid contracts sums of some completed road projects by the Obi Administration without paying for them? If no, are Your Excellency and the present Government of Anambra State encouraging full payment for road contracts sums when the projects are still at primary and secondary stages of completion?
What are the names, lengths and locations of the said 51 recently completed road projects inherited from the Obi Administration, said to worth N44B? At what respective stages of completion were they before taken over by Your Excellency’s Administration since 14th March 2014? How much had respectively been paid to their contractors by the former Obi Administration before their takeover by Your Excellency’s Administration? And when were they respectively completed and commissioned by Your Excellency’s Administration?
Yours Faithfully,
For: Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chair
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Email: [email protected]
Chinwe Umeche, Esq.
Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program
Email: [email protected]
Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq., LLB, BL
Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
Email: [email protected]