Hope rising from Anambra Transition Committee

 ELECTORAL victories give mandates and joys to winners. But gearing up for governance takes extra push, spurs sleepless nights and places huge loads of worry to bearers of the diadem. Preparing to rule is arduous, especially for those that aspire to make the electorate reap good dividends of their preference of them. That is why it is often said that ‘uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.’ No expression can be more true.

     Among Igbo people, there is an aphorism that why the cock crows early in the morning is to rouse those in the comfort of their dream-doped dawns to wake because it takes a lot of jolt to begin the day.

Serious persons with integrity and keeness to deliver dividends of governance to their citizenry begin from outset of their mandate deep dive into work. They approach such tasks like scuba-divers who head straight to the belly of the sea for the item of their quest because there is never enough airtime in the tank.

You know when serious persons get the baton. Once elected, no matter how earlier prepared, they pushes farther. They set forth at dawn, with strong steps and frantic push. They comb every rampart for what would make them excel from ‘Day One’. They ask questions like curious infants; listen like watchdogs would on silent nights and take notes like researchers. They seek low-hanging fruits to know why they are so handy and probe supposed knotty issues to understand why they are very difficult to crack.

Sometimes, beholding persons who know the magnitude of public mandate preparing for office is like encountering a hardworking student heading for a final examination. They do everything they can to retain the trust of the electorate, in appreciation and in justification of the nod they received.   They burn midnight candles, and rummage like timed miners for the real gems needed for their work.  This is because often, there are a lot more than assuming office and exercising authority needed for success in governance and development. Successful leaders work hard to build their fortresses in the minds of their followers.

     Such leaders go a long way to seek knowledge of the current situation around them so as to be able to know their ways through existing challenges and foreseeable ones. With such preparations they begin their reigns with lesser difficulties and clearer focus on what to do. They also forge ahead with sure foot whilst it becomes easier for their followers to know their direction which causes lesser friction in the polity and the land. 

A good case of this is the emergence in power of President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt of the United States of America (USA). Getting into power in the midst of  the great depression when the economy, security and social mood of Americans was very low and there was war, Roosevelt went into a retreat in which, according to historians, he planned how to commence work in a bang . Armed with the study and his excellent gift of the garb, he evolved a way of engaging American people in a manner that earned him instant acceptance. Upon arriving the US White House (presidency) on March 4, 1933, a peak period of economic downturn in the country and globally, Roosevelt successfully orchestrated a new start with the American people which endeared him to the citizenry

He evolved a mode of engagement with the populace that gave him a deep buy-in to the social culture and an eventual recovery of America’s economy as well as a global rebound from the gloom of the great depression. One of his most remembered expressions upon arriving office at that period of a downcast USA was: “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

     He woke the spirit of Americans, lifted the society’s confidence as life and social activities returned even amid the hitherto downturn.  Historians, actually credit him with ‘fixing it’. It was Roosevelt that evolved the trend of marking the first 100 days of US Presidents ever since. 

Penultimate week, upon seeing the 80-man list of eminent and erudite persons in Anambra State Transition Committee (TC), one became positively eager to behold what the state will reap from such an array of brains and experience. As days passed after the Governor-Elect, Prof. Cee-Cee Soludo inaugurated the TC and they rubbed minds with the egg heads in the current government, I thanked God for what Anambra is evolving into.

An Igbo proverb says that a snake does not fail to give birth to a long creature. Integrity, success and brilliance are factors that all the over 100 persons comparing notes in the current TC fora have. Most of them are known around the world for those qualities. It is only obvious that the outcome will be top notch and resourceful for the strong launch of the government of Prof. Soludo from his inauguration on March 17, 2022. In the words of one of 21 Century’s most cited writers on power and politics, Robert Greene in his bestseller, ’48 Laws of Power’: “so much depends on reputation” those who have it and know the reaches of power “guard it with” their life. Definitely, the frontline scholars, professionals, politicians, activists and entrepreneurs in the forum who carved their niche in various fields through thick and thin cannot descend to doing shabby jobs.

Given my firm belief in the Igbo maxim, a nyukoo amiri onu, ogbaa ufufu (united action yields good result), I have conditioned my mind to believe that nothing but good tidings will accrue to ndi Anambra with the healthy, collaborative work of the out-going government of Gov. Willie Obiano and the in-coming regime of Soludo.

     Whatever skeptics or enthusiasts say or imagine, the on-going TC is a big ‘Win’ for the state. It is especially so because the emerging Soludo government has smartly avoided the most appealing ill-preparation and hasty action which most partisan politicians would favour to go for the global best practice of stepping into the stage, well prepared. That way, ndi Anambra, not just one section of the populace, will have tangible hope of achieving the democracy dividends of giving Prof. Soludo, ‘Charlie Nwa Mgbafor,’ their mandate after the November 6, 2021 gubernatorial election.