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General News of Saturday, 16 January 2021

Source: Ifeanyi Chukwu Afuba, Contributor

Have you heard the news! A commissioner resigned from Obiano's cabinet

Governor Willie Obiano Governor Willie Obiano

Music legend Jimmy Cliff came to Nigeria in the early 1970s for a musical concert. Somewhere along the line, he had a disagreement or two with the local organizers and before the reggae maestro could say Jamaica, he was hurled into detention.

You could almost hear the Nigerian promoters bragging: he thought because he's a superstar, he's untouchable. We've put him in the cell; we've taught him a bitter lesson. Partly to tell his side of the story and partly to help his traducers massage their ego, Cliff released the song: Have you heard the news?

The opening lyrics go like this:

"Have you heard the news? News, news, news. Everybody, have you heard the news? I was in Africa, down in Nigeria. Oh they threw me in jail. I had one hell getting bail..."

Jimmy Cliff ended up proving to his antagonists that his reputation was intact; that even if the whole world was bombarded with tale of his arrest in Nigeria, it would not diminish him or stop him from conquering new heights. And that's a lesson for the rambling opposition in Anambra State.

The vacuous opposition to the APGA - Obiano government has for two months now been celebrating the resignation of Christian Madubuko, former Commissioner for Tourism from the State Government. The news has been orchestrated, embellished, spiced and shouted from rooftops with the revelry of partying crowds. For two months, the Anambra opposition has clung to this marginal story like a precious only baby and brandished it as proof that the APGA - Obiano house is falling.

And in a sense, Madubuko's resignation is one trivial story the opposition could peddle in compensation for exertions of empty noise - making. For apart from failed fabrications on the State's indebtedness and sale of Commissioners
Quarters, the opposition finds itself growling like a broken record.

Dazed and dazzled at every turn by the progressive advance and changes wrought by the APGA - Obiano government, they bend down like the ostrich lest they come to terms with the reality of a marvelous transformation.

Consequently, among other landmark achievements, the opposition pretends not to know that it was in demonstration of great leadership that Governor Willie Obiano pulled off the relocation of Boko Haram suspects from Anambra State in 2015 without getting into a confrontation with the federal government.

With jaundiced eyes, the Anambra opposition does not see the beauty of three flyovers in Awka nor the 193m bridge, the longest outside of the Niger in the south east, built by the APGA - Obiano govt.

For the dissembling Anambra opposition, the Court of Appeal Division brought to the State by the APGA- Obiano govt is to be wished away.

The groundbreaking oxygen plant delivered by the APGA - Obiano govt is to be ignored.

The agric revolution and historic export of agro produce by the State under APGA - Obiano govt is to be disputed with outstanding cynicism.

Anambra's continued excellence in WAEC and NECO exams for the past seven years under the education policies of the APGA - Obiano govt is not to be acknowledged lest political capital accrues to the present administration from it.

And of course, the fastly progressing Awka International Conference Centre and Umueri Airport are taboo subjects marked not for discussion except to disparage.

In the event then that a Commissioner's resignation is such big deal for the opposition, let me remind give them a more expensive and tastier cuisine of resignations.

Six months into the post Chris Ngige government in Anambra State, Dr Nkem Okeke, current Deputy Governor resigned as Commissioner. In the words of His Excellency, 'I resigned because I wasn't happy; I didn't like the way things were going.'

About a year after that, Mrs. Elsie Ikemefuna resigned as Commissioner from that same government.

And soon after Ikemefuna's resignation, Mr Ikedi Okwena, then Commissioner for Environment, turned his back to the same administration and left.

He was soon followed by Emeka Ojukwu Jnr, son of the Biafran hero and father -leader of APGA.

Do the opposition still want to make noise about a Commissioner's resignation?