Evaluation is something I do as a part of my everyday lives. Usually it is quite informal and in many cases unconsciously undertaken. Evaluation is about making judgements, usually against explicit or implicit standards. For the past couple of days, I’ve been trying to figure out how to portray Governor Okezie Ikpeaze’s achievements in one single image.
Evaluating the achievements of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s administration recorded since his assumption of office, one striking thing downed on me – Governor Ikpeazu has a larger part of his achievements made on ‘intangibles’.
One may ask, what are these intangibles?
Intangibles are assets that don’t have a physical presence but are critical in ensuring and maintaining human capital development at all cadre, helps in building a competitive edge in economy growth of a State or nation.
We have seen massive ongoing road construction, we have seen immense efforts been invested in promotion and marketing of our indigenous products, we are also witnessing gradual but sure redress on the issue of salary payment, Osisioma interchange and other bridges are on speedy lane of construction. But all these put together does not equate Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’ ‘intangible’ achievements, which points to the glaring fact that he is, indeed, ‘the servant leader’.
Robert K. Greenleaf, describes ‘The Servant as Leader’ “as an ideal leadership form to which untold numbers of people and organizations aspire. According to him, servant-leadership seeks to involve others in decision making, is strongly based in ethical and caring behavior, and it enhances the personal growth of workers while improving the caring and quality of organizational life. The servant leader asks the questions: “do those served grow as persons: do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived?”
The GEEP loan programme of the present administration which in collaboration with the Bank of Industry gave out seed funds to about 30,000 Abians has put the Governor of Abia State, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu on the drivers’ seat of a servant leader as defined above. That is one of the intangibles of the Okezie Ikpeazu administration. There are others of such intangibles which positively impact on the lives of the people of the State. The general outcome will be reduction in criminal activities among youths, youth restiveness and empowerment of the youths.
It should e recalled that previously in the State, youths of different ilk were empowered with the distribution of barrows, motorcycles and other empowerment which were designed to reduce unemployment in the State among other societal ills. As much as those were commendable, they didn’t address the intellectual dimension of such empowerment programmes which will adequately cater for unemployed graduates. Turning graduates to commercial drivers will undermine the potentials of some of these graduates who spent many years in the university to cater for the intellectual needs of the society.
Accordingly, on assumption of office, the State Governor decided to cater for the needs of these category of Abians hence the policy initiatives which will cater Abians across the broad spectrum of the State. That is what all these programmes and policy initiatives where designed to take care of. Some of these policies are stated hereunder:
– Inspected 90 Cooperative Societies business activities and operations in line with the cooperative law.
– Trained 3000 cooperative societies in the three Senatorial zones in collaboration with the CBN and stakeholders on Cooperative governance and credit opportunities. The training for the three senatorial zones was carried out on 5th of October 2016, 11th of October 2016 and 18th of October, 2016.
– Arbitration of cases of 5 cooperative societies to logical conclusions.
– Collaborated with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to train 2000 Cooperators with biased in cocoa farming on the 17th of March, 2017 at Eastern Comfort Hotel, Umuahia.
– 20 women drawn from the 3 Senatorial Zones were trained in Enugu under Women in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
– On-going Reactivation of Women Development Centre (WDCs) in three LGAs, each in the three senatorial zones of the State in collaboration with National Centre for Women Development Abuja.
The affiliation with the Australian NGO, Precious Kids Education Empowerment (PKEE), which has given birth to the training of 800 teachers on class room management, teacher student relationship, first aid management, security alert, professionalism in teaching andleadership management from last May 2016 till date. It is another pointer to the truth that Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu has always shown burning interest and passion for human capacity building. No one can dispute the fact this initiative has brought tremendous positive result in Abia educational sector. By this single partnership, Abia State Government and PKEE took practical steps to not only train the teachers in the primary sector but also make some infrastructural rehabilitation.
The E4E is another plank through which unemployment is attacked in the State. The graduands are educated but in the same breadth trained to be professionals and entrepreneurs. This singular policy has at the heart of its implementation the elimination of unemployment among the youths as well as make them capable employers. In pursuance of this objective, about 36,000 unemployed youths were identified in the State. This programme is packaged to give skills to the youths. Already the first set of trainees are at the E-library undergoing training.
In furtherance of the intangibles of the Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu administration, the Office of Wife of Governor trained over 500 youths across the State under its Skill Acquisition Programme. The said programme has gone to Obingwa, Ukwa Axis, and it is currently ongoing in Bende LGA. After the trainings, startup kits and seed funds are issued out to the trainees by the Wife of Governor.
In the area of education and in line with the Abia State blue print and vision of the State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu bearing in mind the SDG 4 –Education 2030 Agenda which is to “Ensure inclusive and equitable Education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all”; the Ministry of Education within the past two years, set SDG Agenda as her goal and policy thrust and has successfully built a Functional, Focused, Responsive and Inclusive education System that promote life-long learning opportunities for all. Consequently, the Ministry implemented the entrepreneurship and trade subjects curriculum in both Public and private Schools compulsorily as well as identified and trained technical and vocational subjects instructors in the State. The Ministry also trained and retrained technical and vocational teachers in the State school system and adopted a comprehensive Educational Policy for all schools – inclusive learning opportunities for both male and female students to acquire technical and vocational skills in school even as she converted some secondary schools to technical and vocational colleges as to meet the set target. These are the intangibles of this administration.
The Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology ensured that the State Government entered into a 1 billion Naira funding arrangement for MSMEs. Consequently the Bank of Industry has within a short time granted various supports and funding to MSMEs in the State to generate the immediate reflation of the State economy through the real sector. Accordingly, the State Government artisans from the State have demonstrated the capacity to produce better quality conference bags in Aba over the ones they import from China which has led to placement of orders by the ICPC for 2000 bags after samples were verified. Presently, they are the sole producers of all ICPC conference Bags for their events in all 36 States even as all the orders are shared amongst registered artisans with the ministry.
Additionally, the Abia Business community currently leverage on the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) to position the State’s products for export to America. About 20 SMEs were mobilized to exhibit Made-in-Abia products in New York recently. Proceeds from these exhibitions do not get into the State Government coffers but Government is mindful of the impact it will have on the State if the youths are employed, engaged in profitable ventures which will dovetail to growth in the real sector of the economy through human capacity building.
Other capacity building initiatives of the State Government which are intangibles of the present administration in the State are the establishment of the South East Entrepreneurship Development Centre (SEEDC) in Umuahia for the training of new and existing entrepreneurs from the five (5) South Eastern States of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo. Presently, the Centre has graduated five (5) batches of average of 500 in each batches of its participant- Entrepreneurs and the sum of N100m released to the technical advisory committee for start-up funds for the graduates of the South East Entrepreneurship Development Centre (SEEDC). Process of disbursement is on-going and in some cases completed.
The State hosted the maiden edition of the Nation Wide Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Clinic in Aba, Abia State, a programme coordinated by the office of the Vice President of Nigeria to offer MSMEs the opportunity to interact with stakeholders and development partners on issues confronting them and to showcase the products and ingenuity of Abia Entrepreneurs to the purview of the public. The impact has increased patronage of their products and services. The successful outcome of all these is that the participating banks have opened a wide window of opportunities to finance Abia Entrepreneurs. Currently about 1500 entrepreneurs have accessed this fund. These are the intangibles which people don’t see on the streets yet they impact heavily on the wellbeing of the people as they affect individual families with favourable outcome. Government also ensured the resuscitation of the N30m fund for Small Scale Industries (FUSSI) Micro Credit Revolving Loan to make it operational so as to meet the expansion and working capital needs of the existing MSMEs in Abia State. These constitute part of the intangibles.
To this end, it is no gainsaying to posit that Governor Ikpeazu has, in just two years and above, earned himself a ticket for a second tenor.
Let’s support the Governor at work!
Ubani Newman Ubani (UNU)
Friday 27 October, 2017.
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