By Ephraim Nwokoye
The most common definition of democracy often associated with former President of the United States of America (USA), Abraham Lincoln, is “government of the people by the people and for the people.” This presupposes that democracy does not exist in a vacuum, but revolves around the people in any society.
Similarly, the aim of development entails enhancing the wellbeing of the people. Thus, judging by the experiences from advanced democracies across the world, including the United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada and France, a correlation exists between democracy and development.
While democracy aims at engendering development, the latter sustains and enhances the former. However, the story appears to be different in Anambra State today under the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) government led by Governor Charles Soludo. In the past three and half years of the Soludo administration, it appears that the people have been removed from the equation. Rather than pursue human centred development, the Soludo government has spent billions of Naira on cosmetic projects and programmes that have very little or no meaningful impact on the lives of the people.
For instance, education is globally acknowledged as the bedrock of development. Many people expected Professor Soludo, coming from an academic background, to prioritise education. The latest ranking of Anambra State as 33rd in education infrastructure and capital expenditure by Philips Consulting, a leading business and management consultancy firm in Nigeria is an indication that he has performed abysmally in the education sector.
Besides education sector, current government in Anambra is either giving half-hearted or no attention to other critical sectors, such as security, urban development, science and technology, rural development, health, agriculture, industry and commerce, infrastructure and human capital development.
The state of insecurity in Anambra state under the current administration in particular, has been unprecedented in the history of the state. Pundits believe that insecurity is thriving in the state because governance is not human centred.
It is this yawning gap in governance in the state that the Governorship Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), John Chuma Nwosu is eager to fill if elected into office as the Governor on November 8, 2025. Since the commencement of the campaigns in June, Nwosu has been traversing the 177 communities in Anambra, preaching the seven-point SHEEEMS agenda of ADC to the people.
“My agenda is anchored on a social contract that guarantees focused attention on Security, Healthcare, Education Economy, Environment, Markets and Social Welfare for the people,” Nwosu told journalists in an interview recently.
At this juncture, readers are invited to critically analyse the import of the ADC agenda. First and foremost, security is an enabler of investment. Being a businessman and entrepreneur, Nwosu appreciates the fact that no investor would take his fixed and floating capital to an “unsafe” environment. This explains why he intends to adopt a hi-tech approach to combat insecurity in Anambra State, including the establishment of a digital Central Command Control Centre and mounting of Close Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras across the state.
Secondly, there is a saying that a healthy nation in a wealthy nation. This underscores the importance of healthcare in the ADC agenda. If elected into office, Nwosu proposes to priotise the rehabilitation and equipment of numerous comatose government owned health centres and hospitals in Anambra State, to transform them from their current state as “mere consulting clinics” to top notch health institutions.
He also intends to ensure that these health institutions do not run short of drugs and other consumables all year round.
Thirdly, Nwosu’s agenda prioritises education. He plans to take Anambra from a bottom position in the ranking of states in education infrastructure and capital to the top position. He intends to allocate 40 percent to education in the state’s budget, surpassing 33 percent allocation to education by Governor Peter Mba in Enugu State. The ADC candidate proposes to assemble educational experts to formulate an educational policy for Anambra State, aligned with the national policy on education, focusing on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), with a view to making Anambra a hub for innovation in the country.
After Education, Economy is the fourth point of the ADC agenda. In this area, Nwosu intends to work collaboratively with development partners such as the World Bank, African Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to boost agriculture and agri-business, in order to improve the economy of Anambra, both on macro and micro bases. This would be done through an integrative approach to harness both the human and material potential of the state.
Environment, which is the fifth focal point of SHEEEMS agenda, sees the environment as comprising land, water and air, including all the layers of atmosphere, all organic and inorganic matter, and living organisms and their interactive natural systems.
The Soludo administration has been unable to address, not to talk of tackle aggressively the existential threat posed by environmental degradation. Hence, Nwosu prioritized the environment because it is from our environment that we make our living. The ADC government intends to tackle environmental degradation and climate change challenge vigorously, unlike the APGA government pursuing cosmetic development, the APGA government having failed to fulfill its promise of clean, green, planned and sustainable cities, communities and markets in Anambra.
The sixth point in the SHEEEMS agenda is markets. This point is important because Anambra State has the largest concentration of markets in Southern Nigeria, including Onitsha Main Market, which is the biggest market in West Africa.
Currently, under the Soludo administration, the markets exist for the purposes of revenue collection.
Nwosu plans rehabilitate the markets and equip them with modern facilities, including fore fighting equipment to put an end to frequent losses, often running into billions of Naira, incurred by traders during market fire disasters.
The last point in the SHEEEMS agenda is social welfare for the people. This is another area where the APGA government has failed abysmally. The ADC government intends to provide the people, not only with basic amenities, but also support women, children through welfare programmes to be executed simultaneously in the 177 communities in the state.
In sum, the SHEEEMS agenda seems to be anchored on the belief that good governance is about visible service delivery and the responsibility to protect the citizens. Both, according to Nwosu, are anchored on the people being satisfied enough to trust the government and benefitting from measurable and sustainable development. He also sees both as confidence building measures.
Nwosu believes that both APGA and the federal ruling party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) are united in their record of disappointment for the Anambra people, especially in the area of security and citizens’ welfare. He calls the analogous amalgam as APCGA. Indeed, for JCN, as the governorship hopeful is fondly called, the balloting on November 8 has become very easy for our people. By this he means that the people have taken the ADC as the credible and inclusive alternative.
Responding to a question on the inclusiveness of the ADC ticket, Nwosu had noted: “What is more? The ADC parades a balanced religious ticket comprising a catholic and an Anglican, because my running mate, Dr Ndubuisi Nwobu, an Anglican comes from Anambra Central Senatorial Zone. Together, we satisfy the zoning arrangement that guides the distribution of political offices among the three Senatorial Districts of the state.”
Nwokoye writes from Oba, Anambra State
