Tomorrow, 6th November 2021, the people of Anambra will go to the polls to elect a new governor.
In this year’s election, there are 18 “all-male” candidates with 7 females as deputies.
According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), there are over 2.52 million registered voters in the state. As these voters prepare to head to the polls tomorrow, Dataphyte looks at the manifestoes of three of the candidates, weighing it against some of the socioeconomic indicators of the state and what it really needs.
What are the Promises of Some of the Candidates in the Race to the Highest Office in the Land?
The manifestoes reviewed in this piece belong to Maduka Godwin, the candidate of the Accord Party, Charles Soludo of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and Valentine Ozigbo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Valentine Ozigbo, (the candidate of the PDP) in his 40-page manifesto document, promises to increase the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state to N130 billion by 2025.
He also placed employment as part of his priority, as well as healthcare. According to him, he targets to establish 50 primary healthcare centres across all the wards in the state by the end of 2022.
Also notable in his campaign promises is the priority on the ease of doing business in the state by ensuring that there is transparency in the process of registering businesses, obtaining permits, and payment of taxes.
Top of his agenda for the people of Anambra also is the representation of women in his administration. According to him, he will have up to 25% of women in the first year of his administration.
Maduka Godwin of the Accord party in his 16-page Vision document outlined his proposed plans for the citizens of the state to include women empowerment, investment in technology and digital information to solve youth unemployment, also improving the healthcare system in the state.
The Accord party candidate also promises to invest in renewable energy, which he believes will reduce the poverty rate in the state. He also promises to focus on transportation to drive IGR.
In his manifesto, he placed priority on education, promising to ensure that there is free education both for primary and secondary schools in the state.
In his 72-page document titled “The Soludo Solution”, the candidate of APGA outlined his vision for the people of Anambra.
Top of his agenda is sustainable and inclusive wealth creation with jobs. According to him, his administration targets to create at least 100,000 jobs per annum for the youths. In his medium-term plan, he pledges to create 1,000 youth millionaires per annum.
The APGA candidate also promises to position the state as a centre of excellence for human capital development. Part of his plans is also to set Anambra as an industrial-technology hub to lead Africa’s export market under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
He also places emphasis on security, noting that his administration will work with the Federal Government on state security and provision of adequate logistics and material support to security agencies in the state.
Amongst other proposed plans for the state, Soludo pledges to provide access to quality and affordable healthcare for all residents of the state.
Does Anambra Need what has been Promised by the Candidates?
In 2019, the current governor of the state, Willie Obiano stated that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stood at N4.2 trillion. According to him, the figure increased from N3 trillion.
The latest labour force statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) ranked Anambra state had an unemployment rate of 44.22% at the end of 2020. Between 2018 and 2020, the state’s unemployment rate increased from 17.5% to 44.22%, a 61.72% increase in two years. Although Anambra is not listed among the top 10 states with the highest unemployment, the figures are still high.
As per under-employment, the states’ rate stood at 16.48% in 2020, a decline from the 17.6% recorded in 2018.
The poverty headcount rate in the state is 14.78% in 2020. Data shows that there was a great improvement in poverty headcount over an 11 year period, from the 53% recorded in 2010.
The state was ranked 12th amongst the states in the federation on Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). By the end of 2020, the state generated a total of N28.01 billion internally. This was a 6.22% improvement of the N26.37 billion generated in 2019. Total available revenue to the state is still heavily reliant on FAAC allocation contributing 64.51% of the total revenue of N78,926,471,911.26 in 2020. IGR contributed 34.49%.
On ease of doing business, the state ranked 7th in the 2021 Subnational Ease of Doing Business survey conducted by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council.
Anambra State has about 90,000 out of school children, it is doing better than most states, contributing less than 1% to the total number of out-of-children. However, there are concerns that “free” education may not be truly free and education in the urban areas of the state is incomparable to what obtains in the rural areas.
In 2020, Anambra was rated among four other states as the states with the most efficient healthcare service in Nigeria.
According to the report, 27 indicators were used to rate each state’s performance and out of the 36 states, Anambra emerged the top as having the most efficient healthcare service in the country.
According to a report published by Vanguard in 2020, it noted that the state has 20 general hospitals. Anambra has at least one Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) in each of the 326 political wards in the state.
A Nigeria Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) from 2018 indicates that 41.6% of Anambra’s population have difficulties accessing healthcare because of reasons such as cost of service and distance to healthcare facilities.
Promise vs Need
Across the different socioeconomic indices examined, the three candidates whose manifestoes were reviewed appear to have pitched their tent of promise in zones where the state is already making headway and/or needs improvement. Creating employment, improving education, improving healthcare, increasing state IGR, increasing women representation although only one of the candidates provided a metric against which his actions for women empowerment and representation can be measured.
As Anambrarians head for the polls in a few hours, it can only be hoped that they have these promises in mind, and will vote into the highest office of the land the candidate they believe is most likely to fulfil his promises.