By Okechukwu Onuegbu
Awka
As Nigeria marks democracy day, a foremost philanthropist, Mr
Godwin Ezeemo has identified bad governance and electoral malpractice as among factors
militating the country growth.
Ezeemo, who is contesting for the Anambra State 2021 governorship
poll under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), regretted that the
country was still not where she should be despite been in democracy for 22 years.
“We are celebrating 22 years of democracy but a lot is still
left behind when talk about the dividends on ground. If you look at the level
of achievements, you will discover that we have failed to live up to
expectations. Most, if not all elections are still far from being credible, the
security situation is bad, the rate of killings continue to gain momentum, the
economy is not buoyant, the roads are bad, poor electricity supply is there
unchecked, the rate of poverty and unemployment are on the high side, water is
not running and so on, so I would rather say that we still have a long way to
go and the way to go is to allow credible elections for people to chose their
leaders,” he maintained.
The Umuchu-Agauata LGA born, however, congratulated Nigeria at
22, even as he celebrated erstwhile governor of Peter Obi of Anambra and former
President Goodluck Jonathan, describing them as two top leading heroes of
democracy in Nigeria since the return of democratic leadership in the country
in 1999.
To him, Obi remains hero of democracy especially in the
Southeast due to his steering performance as governor, while Jonathan is national
having conceded defeat to the
Presidential candidate of other political party in the person of Muhammadu
Buhari in 2015 election, thereby saving lives and property of many.
He further called for immediate implementation of the
Electoral Reform as gazetted by the National Assembly to put irregularities in
proper checks and allow the choice of the electorates to prevail, evena as he noted
that if allowed to lead Anambra as governor, he deliver the dividends of democracy
as Peter Obi did.