By Michael Chibuzo
In the second part of this series on Peter Obi’s ideology, scorecard and politics, I will continue the breakdown of Obi’s scorecard on some selected sectors. In part 1, I briefly discussed his scorecard in education, highlighting some exaggerations, inaccuracies and falsehood that have been propagated by both Peter Obi himself and his supporters about his legacy in education. Obi’s scorecard in infrastructure will be my next port of call.
PETER OBI’S SCORECARD IN INFRASTRUCTURE
In the area of infrastructure, especially transport infrastructure, Mr. Peter Obi was at best an average governor. It is indisputable that despite spending just under three years in office, Dr. Chris Ngige was far better than Mr. Peter Obi in terms of road infrastructure in Anambra State. Even Mr. Willie Obiano is marginally better than Peter Obi in the area of infrastructure and I will explain why shortly.
Anambra State is the second smallest state by landmass in Nigeria after Lagos. The longest stretch you can travel in Anambra is a 131km distance when travelling from Omasi, Ayamelum LGA located in the northern tip of Anambra to Akri Ugidi, Ogbaru LGA located in the southern tip of Anambra State. The West to East stretch between Onitsha Niger Bridge and Amansea border with Enugu State is just 51km. This reality makes achieving a good road network easier and to an extent cheaper than in states with bigger landmass.
Peter Obi came into office on March 17th, 2006 and inherited a state on the rise in terms of provision of good road networks. Ngige in 33 months in office fully delivered 72 road projects (with standard drainage channels on both sides) totalling a distance of around 380km and cutting across the three Senatorial Districts of Anambra. He bequeathed to Peter Obi 33 ongoing road projects with a total distance of around 420km including the old Onitsha to Awka road that ended in Awka as Ziks Avenue that was constructed by Reynolds Construction Company (RCC), which was the last time RCC ever constructed a road for Anambra State government.
Most of the Ngige roads are still standing strongly today – 18 years after he left office! For those who are from Anambra State, they will know many of these roads, which include the Otuocha-Aguleri-Umuleri-Nteje-Awkuzu-Ifitedunu-Abagana-Eziowelle-Abatete-Uke-Ideani road, Nkpor-Umuoji road, Nnobi-Alor road, Amawbia-Nibo-Mbaukwu-Agulu-road, Amawbia bypass, Isseke-Orsumoghu-Ukpor-Utuh-Nnewi-Awka Etiti road, Nnobi-Nnewi-Ozubulu-Ihembosi-Okija-Ihiala road, Isuochi -Owerri Ezukala-Ogbunka-Umunze-Umuchu-Amesi-Uga road, Uga-Ezinifte-Igboukwu road, Ogbunike-Nkwelle Ezunaka-Nsugbe Junction Road, Onitsha-Obosi Road and many other inner roads.
Peter Obi came in 2006 and slowed down the pace of road constructions in the state especially in his first term in office. He did award a couple of road contracts in his first term though but the projects proceeded at a snailish pace and some contractors abandoned some of the road projects despite collecting some funding from the Obi administration. A typical example is the 26km Amansea-Ebenebe-Ugbenu-Ugbene-Awba Ofemili road, which Obi awarded in 2007 and in 2013 (a year to the end of his 2nd term) was apologising to Awka North people over the inability of the contractor to deliver the road for over five years despite collecting 90% of the contract sum.
In part 1 of this series, I had pointed out how Peter Obi nearly lost his re-election bid in 2010 because ndi Anambra were not satisfied with his lacklustre performance in office. Despite the personal appeal of Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu to voters to give Obi a second chance for his sake, Obi was able to get only 34% of the votes. In the 8 years of Peter Obi administration, he was able to deliver some road projects of questionable qualities. Ironically, the most solid of these Peter Obi constructed roads are federal roads with the designs and quality specifications approved by the Federal Ministry of Works.
Some of the major roads Peter Obi constructed or oversaw their completion (inherited from Ngige) include the old Onitsha-Awka road (Obi segmented this road in his list of achievements into two roads but all of them are still the same Onitsha-Awka old road), the 22km Onitsha head bridge to Odumodu junction section of the Enugu-Onitsha expressway (Obi also segmented this road into three road project including the Nkpor flyover), phase 1 of Umueze Anam-Mmiata road (which had to be reconstructed except for the bridge), 7km Nise-Agulu section of the Amawbia-Okigwe federal road, Agulu-Adazi-Nnokwa-Nnobi-Nnewi road (which was totally dilapidated before Obiano left office), Nibo-Umuawulu-Awgbu-Amaokpala-Oko road (inherited from Ngige but reviewed the project and today the road needs reconstruction) and others.
Between 2013 to 2014, which was the last year of Obi’s administration and an election period where Peter Obi was desperate to install Willie Obiano as his successor, his administration stepped up the “rehabilitation” of a couple roads in the state. The Agulu inner roads for instance were delivered towards the twilight of his administration, a couple of inner roads in Awka were half-done by the time he handed over to Obiano. In fact, most of the roads people credit to Peter Obi were completed during the Obiano administration with Obiano inheriting a N185 billion outstanding contract liabilities to road contractors many of whom had indirect links to Peter Obi, which is why Obiano queried Peter Obi’s popular song around town that he left savings of N75 billion for him. I will briefly touch on the Peter Obi’s alleged savings later.
Unfortunately, Obi’s legacy in road infrastructure will be forever blighted by the fact that he severely compromised on quality of road constructions. He used many local contractors who lacked any prior experience on road construction unlike Ngige who used companies like RCC, SETRACO, Niger CAT and also added few local companies like Master Holdings. Peter Obi’s roads were dubbed China roads because many of them started failing even before construction were completed.
Anambra has a difficult soil that is prone to erosion, Ngige understood that and made provision of double drainage channels a must in all his road constructions as well as use of stone base as a foundation before applying thick asphalt binder. Peter Obi in many roads, never used stone base and in many others, did not construct drainage channels. So, few years after leaving office many of these roads started dilapidating with huge crater-like potholes showing up across the length of many of these roads including those with low vehicular traffic. What this means is, in trying to be penny-wise Obi became pound foolish because his successors had to contend with reconstructing roads that were barely 5 years old.
In other areas of infrastructure such as water supply, Mr. Peter Obi did not struggle to hide the fact that provision of clean and portable water to the people was not a priority of his administration. Obi inherited an Anambra Water Corporation, which Ngige has started resuscitating but promptly killed it and all but scrapped the corporation, leaving the workers stranded for years. Ngige showed ndi Anambra that water can still run through pipes to their homes with the re-activation of Onitsha and Awka township water schemes which brought pipe-borne water to residents of Awka and Onitsha. This stopped immediately Obi came in and water never flowed again throughout his 8 years in office.
Peter Obi’s notion of provision of water supply to meet millennium development goal number 7 was provision of boreholes in some communities in collaboration with donor agencies, which is not a bad idea on its own. However, the flaw in this is that it is a minimalist thinking considering the fact that you can actually ensure safe drinking water gets to people’s home in the major cities of Awka, Ekwulobia, Nnewi and Onitsha by investing in the various existing water schemes that hitherto served these areas while also carrying out mini-town water schemes in other smaller towns and complementing it with borehole water projects in the rural areas. Obi was never a fan of huge projects or undertakings, he prefers to take the easy routes. Sustainability most times doesn’t feature in his calculations.
PETER OBI’S SCORECARD IN HOUSING
Peter Obi in eight years did very little in the area of provision of housing for the people. Mbadinuju in four crisis-ridden years of his administration delivered the Iyiagu housing estate and started the Ngozika Housing estate both in Awka. Peter Obi completed the Ngozika estate phase 1 project and flagged off phase 2 in 2011. That was it basically as far as housing was concerned for Peter Obi. Although while enumerating his achievements in the housing sector, Peter Obi always points to his construction of new secretariat complex for the state civil service, as well as building of local government secretariats for most of the 21 LGAs (a job that ordinarily is not meant for Obi if he was not collecting the monthly FAAC Allocation of these LGAs) as achievements.
PETER OBI’S LEGACY IN AGRICULTURE
In Agriculture, Peter Obi has no extraordinary achievement to boast of. Out of office, it is common to see Peter Obi giving sermon on how to boost food production in Nigeria especially in the northern states by investing heavily in agriculture but while in government he did not deploy any of those templates to boost agriculture in Anambra State. Obi will tell you that he built rural roads to facilitate movement of agricultural produce. For those who know Anambra well, it is laughable because the Omambala axis extending to communities in Awka North like Achalla, Ebenebe, Ugbenu, Urum, Mgbakwu, Isuaniocha as well as some communities in Anambra South such as Ogboji and other agrarian communities in Orumba and Aguata who constitute the food basket of the state had bad road network as at the time Obi left office.
Like I said before, Obi believes in the barest minimum, he doesn’t fancy thinking in large scale. Peter Obi will bring like N70 million to the table as Anambra’s counterpart fund for Fadama project (just like most states) and he will be bragging that he invested heavily in agriculture. The funny part is that by providing little subventions to the Anambra College of Agriculture established at Mgbakwu by Ngige, Peter Obi will count it as investment in agriculture to boost food production. Peter Obi’s government could not take advantage of the rice belt around the Omambala axis and invest in rice mill for instance. The Omor Rice mill was handed over to Obi by FG in 2010 but years later, the place was still unproductive.
Peter Obi disbursed money to farmers (many of who are not really farmers but APGA members who registered themselves into Cooperatives just to get credit alerts). As at late 2013, Peter Obi was still talking about procuring 100 tractors for farmers in Anambra State. The 8 years of Obi administration had very little to show as tangible achievement in agriculture. A look at the budgetary provisions and actual releases for agriculture in his 8 years in office will confirm this.
PETER OBI’S SCORECARD IN HEALTH
In the health sector, the story of Peter Obi’s performance is often highly exaggerated just like what you have in the education sector. Forgive me to once again return to the Ngige era as I try to put Obi’s scorecard in the health sector in proper perspectives. One of the first acts of Dr. Chris Ngige in the health sector was the release of counterpart fund for stalled World Bank assisted health centers rehabilitation projects across the 21 LGAs, which were started under Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju. Each local government had two benefitting health centers making it a total of 42 health centers.
Ngige inherited a very lean workforce in the health sector with very few doctors and consultants. In fact there were only around 50 real nurses (mostly matrons) under the payroll of the Anambra State Government. Ngige had to start by employing staff nurses, doctors and consultants and other health workers both for the state hospitals and the health centers belonging to the LGAs. He cleared outstanding salaries owed health workers and moved to secure accreditation for some health institutions and state-owned hospitals including the Onitsha General Hospital, which Peter Obi lists as part of the hospitals he secured accreditation for.
For this particular Onitsha General Hospital, it is indisputable that a Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) delegation led by Dr. Ezeani that came to assess what Onitsha General Hospital needed to be re-accredited on the invitation of Dr. Ngige gave him a to-do list in September 2003. Ngige met these requirements over a two-year period. He recruited consultants, General duty doctors, nurses of all cadres, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, radiographers, physiotherapists etc for the hospital and by July 2005, the poor personnel situation had been addressed, while the House Doctors staff quarters, a new OBS/GYNAE theatre and wards were built, general wards and consulting rooms were also rehabilitated by a medical company called Giovani Nigeria Ltd.
The accreditation of Onitsha General Hospital was restored in July 2006, three months after Ngige left office. There is simply no way Obi could have been responsible for the re-accreditation of the hospital in just 3 months for those who know the state of the hospital before. Obi however, to his credit, ensured the accreditation process (which basically involves rehabilitation of facilities, provision of basic equipment and staff) were concluded for College of Health Technology, Obosi and School of Nursing and Midwifery at Nkpor.
Peter Obi also rehabilitated a couple of general hospitals in the state including the conversion of Amaku general hospital to a teaching hospital for the state university. He however preferred giving the Catholic Church (which run some hospitals) money to invest in their mission hospitals. This is not particularly a bad thing, however, these mission hospitals would always be private and then charge high fees. In the end, the vast majority of poor people in Anambra State still have to visit the primary health centers in their localities, many of which had very poor facilities and grossly understaffed, for maternal and child care as well as for many ailments. So, giving mission hospitals cash assistance, while a good gesture, does not really improve access to affordable and good healthcare. Public health centers will always offer cheaper services than private facilities, so they need to receive all the attention from the government. Obi simply left improvement in primary healthcare facilities to move at a pace dictated by support from international donor agencies, in keeping with his minimalist inclination of course.
Peter Obi in 8 years in office pulled many “the more you look, the less you see” stunts in the health sector. Apart from giving funds to mission hospitals at the detriment of greater investment in existing and new government-owned hospitals (both in terms of facilities and personnel), Obi has sought to take glory for investments from the FG and international donor agencies in the primary health sector as part of his administration’s strides in health. For instance, during the 2023 presidential election campaign, Obi at a town hall event said, “When I left office, the only measure of development at that time was the millennium development goals by the United Nations and the Nigeria federal government was run by the party I don’t belong to, I was number one. I was number one in education, I was number one in health – I won the Bill Gates prize.”
The above statement from Peter Obi shows a classical Obi who would always want to exaggerate events just to paint his scorecard in office as stellar. Peter Obi in 2013 won the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation prize for the best performing governor on the eradication of polio in the South East zone and he turned it to mean that he was the best performing governor in Nigeria in the health sector as at the time. If we are to even look closely at what Obi even did to bag the award, you would realise it was a question of working with the federal government-run National Programme on Immunization, UNICEF and few other agencies, which provided bulk of the funding to provide cold storage facilities for vaccines and free vaccines for immunisation of children against killer diseases including polio. Anambra had been declared polio free as far back as May 2007 thanks to the aggressive immunisation campaign Ngige independently instituted, which attracted closer collaboration with the donor agencies and the FG in first place.
I wouldn’t be outlining the above if Peter Obi simply acknowledged the foundations laid for him by Ngige across the health sector, which he built upon without over-exaggerating his contributions or the state of the health sector itself when he left office in 2014. He did his bit in the health sector but was not spectacular the way he now wants people to believe. Under Obi, there was no real interest to revamp the primary healthcare system (the corner stone of true health access) in the state not to talk of constructing new health centers in many communities with none, rather he was focused on taking the easier route of giving missions money while many LGAs lacked a functional general hospital. In fact, it was Obiano who established the Anambra State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (ASPHDA) to oversee development of PHCs across the 326 wards in Anambra State. Obiano also worked to improve access to healthcare by establishing Anambra State Health Insurance Agency (ASHIA).
I will have to end the part 2 of this increasingly lengthy series on Peter Obi’s ideology, scorecard and politics here. I will touch on Obi’s legacy in the remaining areas of security, youths and sports development, revenue generation and accountability, industrialisation, democracy and rule of law in the concluding part. Also, I will x-ray Obi’s current brand of politics and opposition tactics.