The Editorial Board of The Sun publishing Limited, publishers of Daily and Saturday and Sunday Sun titles, has offered insight into what informed the newspaper’s choice of the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano as its Governor of the Year 2015.
Presenting a formal letter notifying the governor of his emergence as the Governor of the Year at the Governor’s Lodge, Amawbia on Tuesday, the Managing Director of The Sun, Eric Osagie explained that after two days of robust debate by the publication’s editors and a long period of exhaustive verification and comparison of the activities of all the governors of the federation in the fast out-going year, Governor Obiano was unanimously chosen as The Governor of the Year.
Explaining that the Governor of the Year is a new category in the publication’s yearly celebration of outstanding Nigerians who had enriched the national narrative of excellence, Osagie explained that Obiano’s choice was fairly easy on account of his outstanding performance in the last one year.
Describing The Governor of the Year as the most competitive category of the awards, Osagie observed that Governor Obiano had changed the story of his state in his first 18 months in office.
Reeling out the governor’s achievements, he mentioned the provision of effective security for residents and visitors to the state, the impressive increase in the state’s IGR from N500m to N1.3bn, the attraction of N2.4bn investments out of which over $670m went into agriculture, the attraction of over $150m investments into the manufacturing sector out of which the sum of $50m had gone into the building of an auto assembly plant in Ozubulu.
Others include the renovation of 862 units of 10 classroom blocks across the 21 local government areas in the state among numerous other achievements.
The Sun Managing Director also listed rapid infrastructural development and the regular payment of workers’ salaries in an era of recession as some of the attributes that qualified Obiano for the honour.
“These uncommon but silent efforts of your government to change the narrative of Anambra State; these passionate and sincere contributions of yours have made you the first winner of the Governor of the Year”, Osagie declared.
The Sun MD also recalled that the Awards currently in its 13th season had been essentially sustained by merit and integrity, listing past winners to include business mogul, Chief Mike Adenuga, former Head of State, Gen. Abdul Salam Abubakar, First Republic Minister, Chief Mbazuluike Amaechi, former governor of Bendel State and Sam Ogbemudia among others.
Accepting the Letter of Nomination, Governor Obiano assured the Sun Team that the honour would spur him to do more for Ndi Anambra whom he said deserved the very best that democracy could offer.
According to him, his administration had hit the ground running on inception in order to correct the many ills that had bedevilled the state for a very long time.
He hinted that he drew a lot of inspiration from his background as an accomplished banker and a chartered accountant saying that the mantra of his administration was “doing more with less.”
According to him; “We tackled the security challenge in the first three months. That made it possible for us to focus on our economic blueprint and pursue our plan for the state.”
Pledging his commitment to provide the best democracy dividends to the people, Governor Obiano observed that though he had received six awards in less than two years, he valued The Sun Governor of the Year most.
The award ceremony is scheduled to take place at Eko Hotel and Towers, Victoria Island, Lagos on February 201, 2016.
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