AN UNCOMMON GRASSROOTS POLITICIAN CALLED BRIDGET ANYAFULU

Ike Okonta pays tribute to Anyafulu, a politician with a difference

Since I began my career as a journalist and public intellectual in 1989, my focus has always been national – asking the question how come Nigeria has not been able to realise her potential as the giant of Africa. However, of late I have come to begin to question this focus, asking whether I shouldn’t also be looking at the local – the states and the local government areas and how they are contributing to the general malaise that is Nigeria.

A couple of months ago I took a trip to Asaba, capital of Delta State, to find out how ordinary people were faring and whether the democratic experiment embarked upon by our political leaders since 1999 had impacted positively on them. Asaba has been the capital of Delta State since 1991. It is an average-sized town rapidly transforming into a city. Its politics has been dominated by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) since 1999 without a break. When I asked friends and other acquaintances in the town to be introduced to the political figures who make things happen in the town, all fingers kept pointing in one direction: Bridget Anyafulu.

The interesting point is that Bridget Anyafulu is a first term member of the Delta State House of Assembly, representing Oshimili South. Ordinarily, one would assume that she is a political neophyte, yet to be tested in the furious cut and thrust of Nigerian politics and yet to prove her mettle. But that assumption is wrong. Long before she assumed office as a House of Assembly member, Ms Anyafulu had made it her business to tackle social and economic problems in Asaba and other surrounding towns, be it garbage collecting, taking care of out of school children, or indigent hospital patients unable to pay their fees.

But that is not all. Bridget Anyafulu is also blessed with the common touch – a rare attribute of the Nigerian politician. I first met her at the chieftaincy title-taking ceremony of an Asaba notable. She had just won the election but was yet to be sworn in. She came to the venue of the ceremony with only one political aide in tow. She was simply dressed in a white gown. When we were introduced she simply smiled and asked me what I thought were the major social, economic and political challenges confronting Asaba and the other towns comprising Oshimili South Local Government Area and that she was anxious to get to work to address these problems.

I found her approach refreshingly commendable. Most Nigerian politicians, on winning office, usually concern themselves first and foremost with the salaries and perks accruing to that office. The follow-up questions they ask is whether luxury cars and houses are attached to their office and whether the money to be allocated to constituency projects they will execute is sizeable enough. But Bridget Anyafulu did not bother with such trifles. The way she saw it, her election was a call to serve the people of Asaba diligently, and she was determined to do exactly that.

Asaba and environs have been under the sway of the PDP since 1999. Bridget Anyafulu is a member of the PDP. I do not know if this is a good thing, but the fact of the matter is that PDP has not performed very well in the capital city and indeed state-wide since the advent of the Fourth Republic. Unemployment is at an all-time high. Major towns and cities suffer from infrastructure deficit. Hospitals and schools are dilapidated. Agriculture, the major bulwark of the rural areas, has not been given the attention it deserves. Corruption in public office is shockingly routine. Even so, the PDP has continued to win election after election.

Bridget Anyafulu has to work extra hard to prove that not all politicians in the PDP are dyed in the colours of incompetence and corruption. Indeed, she has taken the rights steps by asking what the challenges facing Asaba voters are. And it seems to me that they are legion. First, there is the question of what the town needs to fully transform itself into a capital city befitting an oil-producing state. Asaba roads are disgraceful. Nnebisi Road, the major commercial artery of the town, is the only good road in the town. When you journey into the inner quarters of the town you are met with untarred roads and muddy paths. There is also flooding when it rains. The immediate past governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, embarked on a major project of flood control but it didn’t go far enough. There is more work to be done in this area.

Another problem begging for attention is youth employment in Asaba. It is estimated that 70 percent of Asaba youth roam the streets every day looking for work that is simply not available. This is because the state government has not provided the enabling environment for businessmen to establish factories and other commercial enterprises in the town. This has to change. There was a time when the Asaba Textile Mill, established when Dennis Osadebe, an Asaba native, was premier of Midwestern Region, provided good paying jobs. Sunday Odogwu, another native, also established a bag-making factory in the town, in the early 1990s. All these ventures have since collapsed. Clearly, there is need for a bold new policy regime prioritizing the establishment of factories in the town.

Bridget Anyafulu also must draw the attention of the Delta State government to the disgraceful state of the town’s schools and hospitals. She needs to make the point on the floor of the House of Assembly that Asaba is now a major cosmopolitan town on the cusp of transforming into a big city, and that this metamorphosis brings with it the challenges of population increase and with this the need to provide funds for adequate schools, hospitals and public housing. To leave these to the ordinary people to provide themselves is to invite anarchy, and close on its heels, crime and violence. The state government must step in to provide these needs.

If the little I saw Bridget Anyafulu do as a member of the Delta State House of Assembly is any indication, then clearly democracy in Nigeria is not all sorrow and tears. In small pockets in this vast country, politicians are stepping forward and addressing the needs of their people.

 Our task as journalists and public intellectuals is to continue to urge our politicians to enlarge the coast of their good deeds, and doing so, save democracy in Nigeria.

Dr Okonta was until recently Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Politics, University of Oxford. He now lives in Abuja