The second session at The Platform 2022 was taken by Dr, Joe Abah. He began by using an analogy, telling the story of Wazobia kingdom with ‘Eze Wazobia’ as the King of Wazobia that has 36 villages with 36 ‘Igwes’ as the rulers of the 36 villages.
He pointed out that Eze Wazobia has done well in the area of infrastructure but there is no security to use it with, there are no cowries in circulation, no light, no petrol, and no jobs.
He stated that Wazobia is about to choose a new King saying; “Now, Wazobia is at the threshold of choosing a new Eze. The people in this market square have said that a better Wazobia is possible; that is difficult to argue against because we Igbos say that when a man says ‘yes’, his chi also says ‘yes’”
Referring to himself as the ‘Ezemo’ of Wazobia kingdom, he said he has been consulted to tell how Wazobia will be better, why it will be better and what will be better; what Eze and his 36 Igwes would expect when they come into office next year. He recommended that the new Eze should do the following:
The first thing the new Eze Wazobia must do is stop the bloodshed. He must ruthlessly crush the insurgence, the bandits and the unknown gunmen, he has the technology and secret service know-how to do so and if he doesn’t, he must urgently get them. He should seek the help of other countries where necessary.
Eze Wazobia must reduce waste among the legislators. Eze wazobia cannot stop the legislators from creating more agencies but he can refuse to appoint into them and set them up. If there is no appointment into them and they are not set up, there will be no cowries for them to waste.
He must bring down the cost of food.
He must focus on power, without power Wazobia will continue to suffer arrested development. It can be done as other kingdoms have been able to achieve it.
He must get a bazooka gun to fight corruption because without that, Wazobia will never develop.
The decision of who the next Eze would be, lies in the hands of the youths of Wazobia and would depend on whether or not they collect their PVC’s and actually come out on election day to vote.
Rather than blaming those that were before him or the youth of Wazobia that are just trying to survive, in the first few years of his rulership, the new Eze should fix the problems as he was chosen to do so and provide inspiration and hope using the local hospital next door rather than going to other kingdoms that have solved their own problems.
The new Eze must stop annual strikes in academic institutions, he must press the reset button and start afresh.
He must stop subsidizing petrol for the urban dwellers because the rural dwellers have been paying the full price. The interstate transporters have been paying the full price for
diesel which is not subsidized. Rather than subsidize the fuel for the rich, The new Eze should look at using that money in subsidizing solar panels in encouraging renewable energy to make sure that there is more power for many other people.
He must stop stealing our oil. We can have flow meters on our pipelines to check where oil is been stolen. Civil defence alone cannot guide our pipelines, we need to use drones.
The new government must support Fintech without getting in its way.
In conclusion, he said that a better Wazobia is possible citing how Bangladesh has embarked on a development journey and is being transformed today.
He continued in this line saying Charlie Robertson an Economist attributes Banglesh’s development to three things; Literacy, electricity and fertility, and Bangladesh has passed in all these tests while Nigeria is failing in these on the contrary. He mentioned how we can work on these areas and develop through practice; “We can progress if we invest more in education, if we increase our power supply and if we reduce our fertility rate through relevant education”.
