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The myth or reality of insecurity hype in Anambra State, a subnational entity in Nigeria is a nagging question much as it is also a paradox that is in need of logical interpretation for economic and infrastructural investments in the state. Paradox is less of truth more often and as far as Anambra state is concerned the question of insecurity is a myth because it is relative to the national malaise and in comparism to other states, but for the hyperbolic media siege on the state by the enemies of investments.
If insecurity were a reality the Government strides in economic and social transformation would not have been possible, the studded and seamless policy implementations would have been hackneyed and the collaborative trusts with foreign partners, community stakeholders and private sectors would not have been yielding the result of Anambra State being the state with highest per-capita-income and with the most resilient individuals in private and public entrepreneurship.
If insecurity were not a reality then it is handsomely a myth created by political and existential challenges threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria which include among others, poverty, political instability, criminality, corruption, injustice and separatists agitation, even as Anambra people defy all these to remain top in business and entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Insecurity in Anambra State remains a myth as long as gross per-capita-income remains highest, save the Monday sit-at-homes that is already on nose-dive.
The Government of Anambra State efforts to destroy the myth of insecurity in the state is ramifying ranging from containment of globally effervescent banditry, and cultism to economically and criminally induced business of kidnapping, all of which have had unholy interface with the phenomenon of separatist agitation and Monday sit-at-homes. In the midst of this, being good neighbor and one’s brother’s keeper is campaigned vigorously. “Security is not one man’s business, it is everybody’s business” (Soludo, 2023).
The Government policy of containment is both unilateral efforts harvested from community, environmental and culturally based security initiatives and collaborations with the Nigerian state. This is all the more constructively and cognitively weighty when it is inferred from the determination to appeal to the security consciousness of the people in consistence with the exclusive powers of the Nigerian state.
The statesmanship of the Governor is not in doubt as he continually appeals for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu whose detention is the alleged excuse for the Monday sit-at-home and the random insecurity in the southeast. But the Governor has the political will and the imagination to build Anambra State in stiff opposition to the bulwark of mischief makers, agents of conspiracy and insecurity mongers. With a few conspirational theories the insecurity in Anambra State is a myth.
One is the machinations of interlopers, political boot lickers and naked enemies of the government that cast aspersions and negative images on developments in the state. The other is the sit-at-home syndrome which has not been able to eclipse the industry, entrepreneurship and resilience of Anambra people as the development agents in every part of Nigeria, an index which Professor Charles Soludo, the Governor of Anambra is striving to institutionalize.
The myth of insecurity created by forces within and without is not enough to desuade Anambrarians who have developed other parts of Nigeria from coming home to invest and trade for greater Anambra state. For Anambrarians, life goes in Nigeria despite the phantom security challenges in the southeast yet with another conspiracy as a result of insecurity flowing down from the collapsing Nigerian nation state to the subnationals. These subnationals in the Southeast have their relative strengths and weakness in absorbing shocks amid their relative historical neglect, subjugation and marginalization by the political forces in the country.
Factors that have always made it easy to cloning the pantheon (myth) of insecurity in Anambra State are, therefore, the political morbidity of Igbo race themselves in Nigerian context, the southeast Monday sit-at-home and the general insecurity in Nigeria. These are delicate reductions, deductions and analysis which are driven by the logic of reason to establish the myth and pantheon of insecurity in Anambra state reinforced by enemies of progress and politicians to hoodwink investors and stifle trading nuggets in Anambra state, the business and entreprenural destination and hub in Nigeria and Africa.
Testifying against this myth, Igwe Uyanwa of Ukwulu in Anambra State spoke, “Anambraians who own businesses outside the state should bring some home. I was initially in Abuja but since Soludo assumed office I have returned my investments to the state, which is now bearing dividends” However, challenges abound for the Government of Anambra State which include, for emphasis again, the historical political handicap of Igbo race, the sit-at-home syndrome and the wobbling state of Nigeria.
The galaxies of opinions, editorials and positions on the situation of insecurity in the southeast have been emotionally drenched, politically threadbare, ideologically biased and logically inverted so much so that southeast and Anambra state in particular would always be carpeted as a toddler in Nigeria’s politics of insecurity. Yet, “Nigerian politics” as a concept and noun is only a cesspool of insecurity and instability which are symptoms of a failed state and paralysis of nationhood. A failed state, and in this case, a failed nation-state, Nigeria, is thus prevailing conditions of insecurity, unpredictable and drifting economic direction, financial harmorrage, currency mismanagement, foreign exchange volatility, food inflation and multidimensional poverty.
So a vertical or birds eye view of insecurity in the southeast without tracing how it is rekindled from the polity is a usual fallacy of defending the status quo. Editorials and opinion pundits have only taken establishments apology of what is to be in defense of Nigeria without escaping from the box to ex-ray horizontally, in equity, justice and fairness, the remote and immediate causes of insecurity in the southeast and in particular, Anambra State.
Nigerian nation-state and nationhood has been a cancerous contraption that has been a burden to her citizens and subnationals who were forced into the colonial contract to toil and produce for corrupt leaders and imperial overlords. Since independence, different regimes in Nigeria have been subject to command and control of the imperialists with US and Britain using the weapons of political and economic instability to sharpen societal ills like insecurity and poverty.
The remote cause of insecurity in the southeast, and by implication Anambra, is, therefore, this colonial hangover of inequity, injustice and unfairness in Nigeria’s governance and economic structure. Yet, Anambra State and a few other subnationals continue resiliently to survive under a pantheon of contradictions within the contraption called Nigeria with paranormal growths in manufacturing, trade and distributions of goods. The economic growths envisaged in Anambra State by the present administration are structured in social transformation of the state as another Dubai in Africa with Onitsha and Nnewi being deconstructed to act as spring boards.
The people are characteristically resilient, ebullient, healthy, bold, ambitious and entreprenually diversified to contain cultism and other social illness as well as the weakness of Nigerian nation state to forge independent and autonomous world economic empire. Suffice it to say that Anambra people have had and will continue to have a buoyant socio-economic climate that would never be overwhelmed by any rumour, facade and cascade of phantom insecurity fabricated by political enemies and precipitated by the shortcomings of the Nigerian state.
This thesis as could be seen from bending backward and perching forward analysis is to differentiate appearance from reality, myth from perception, politics from culture and hardwork from moonlight indulgences. Stories about insecurity in Anambra State under Prof. C. Soludo’s administration are nothing but campaign of calumny against innovative and progressive change. It is politics for its sake and for bread and butter. All the conspirational pressures and political manipulations of unsuspecting citizens either to achieve one end or the other through sit-at-home, cultism, kidnapping are insecurity myths created by those whose ignoble and unenvious objective and stock in trade is to detract the good works of the Governor and set the trajectory of the state back, which at any rate, is not possible for a people with inbuilt consciousness for economic growth and progress.
In what looked like crack down on insecurity in Anambra State penultimate week when sit-at-home was ordered from nowhere, the Anambra State Governor, with his uncanny scientific and sustainable governance formular demystified sit-at-home orders and actions that made Anambra State yet again the light of the nation and crucible or hub of Igbo nation’s business. Following his pre-emptive and proactive measure to contain political criminal actors he mobilized the state stakeholders, market people, commercial banks and security agents to the warm reception of Anambrarians who more than before wielded businesses and social activities in the pursuit of their dreams.
Banks’ offices were opened to the public even as buses, tricyclists and private car owners returned to the roads and streets of Anambra State, the hub of business transition and destination in Nigeria and Africa. What interlopers and political propangandist have woefully failed to influence is the landscape and vistas of businesses that go on in every nooks and corner even with or without sit-at-home, an entrepreneurial culture, which has been identified as a gift to the people and which the state Governor is institutionalizing and internationalizing as a Dubai prototype. This is the culture that built commercial hubs and chartels instead of insecurity myths in Anambra State.
Apart from Onitsha and Nnewi Industrial and commercial centres of excellence there are many trading and markets poles often three in most local councils in Aanambra State. Amid Monday sit-at-homes, rumuors of insecurity in the state and the phenomenon of insecurity in Nigeria, inflation, fledgling socio-economic and micro-economic volatility, Anambra State remains a monolithic entity and space for business transactions and destinations like Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia and Dubai. The vision of the Governor of Anambra is to raise the existing business and entrepreneurial culture of Anambra State to enviable standards in the international market and trade. Insecurity rendition in Anambra state is, therefore, a pantheon of speculation passing as myth in the convoluted hype and hyperbole of political weaponization against the Government in power and the people of Anambra State.
Professor Dukor is of the Department of Philosophy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Akwa.
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