[OPINION] The Great Thing Gov. Willie Obiano Must Do For Anambra State Now

By Anayo M. Nwosu

Now the elections are over and Gov. Willie Obiano has been re-elected, all great thinkers from Anambra are duty bound to suggest ways or strategies to make our state great.


I had patiently listened, read and analyzed the manifestos of the gladiators in the last election and was gladdened by their good intentions but something was missing.

Anambra State must conduct a head count of all its people at home and abroad capturing all the demographics the National Population Commission has refused to capture due to politics.

It is a shameful truth known to everybody that the national population figures are not reliable. This fact was reiterated by Festus Odimegwu, the immediate past chairman of the population commission and a former managing director of Nigeria Breweries Plc.

Odimegwu’s exposé was about to rip open, a putrid sore and a tragedy in Nigeria. He was hurriedly pressured to vacate office to prevent him from letting the cat out of the bag.


Nigeria of today would prefer to remain in a blissful data darkness than to exposure the charade of our population figures. Every state lobbied in the last exercise to have an enhanced population number to enable it have an increased share from federation revenues allocation.

Land mass and population are some of the key determinants of how much a state receives from the monthly federal allocation.

There is no way the state can effectively implement its people oriented policies without knowing exactly our exact population, age distribution, economic strata, attested residential addresses of residents, religious inclination, number of (unemployed, employed and underemployed), those living outside Anambra, marital status and connections etc.

Governor of Anambra State should spend good money in 2018 to obtain reliable data on the citizens of his state to enable him plan better.

It will not only benefit his government but all others after him.

The governor should weather the stormy challenge expected to be posed by federally controlled National Population Commission. They may go to court to stop the state from encroaching on their function.

He could tag the exercise any name like “Neighbourhood Data Bank” or “Nguko Umunna”.


The derived data would be easy to collect.

The structure is already there.

The governor has already done well in his first tenor to ensure that all the 119 towns and communities in the state have installed traditional rulers and town union executives in place.

The building block of each town or community in Anambra State is called Umunna (which is a name given to extended family). Each umunna has a natural obi or a clan head and also elected executives.

A group of umunna makes up a community just as a group of communities makes up a village and a group of villages makes up a town.

Therefore, each umunna in Anambra State should compile a least of all their family members using the forms supplied by state government’s consultants.

All non-indigenes in the local communities are known to members of communities wherein they reside. They pay vigilante dues. It is easy to get them supply their bio data once exercise commences.

The state government should use the churches and mosques to disseminate information on the merit of the data collection exercise. The local media and town criers could also be of help.

For Awka, Onitsha and Nnewi, the Umunna based enumeration should be supplemented by street to street and house to house visitation by trained enumerators to gather the required data. This would ensure that non-indigenous residents are captured.


All the information gathered should be input in a protected computer database and should be analyzed by experts to generate useful information.

The best methodology for this important exercise would still be determined by enumeration consultants.

There is no gainsaying that the need to have reliable demographics of the citizens of the state by a push of a button. That’s what makes a white man appear like a magician.

With reliable population data, the state government can determine the exact needs of the children, youth and the aged.  With correct information, planning becomes easier.

It is too bad that many state governments in Nigeria don’t have the correct statistics of those they govern. That’s why the governors undertake projects and policies that don’t impact on the lives of their citizens.

When a governor works with incorrect demographics of the governed, he just gropes in the dark.

Anambra should break away from the crowd of the clues and backward pack by doing the right thing.

That’s the way to greatness.