At least 77.9 per cent of residents and indigenes of Anambra state are optimistic that Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo-led administration in Anambra state can address the most critical challenges facing the state as his enters the third week in office.
This wave of optimism was obtained from a perception and expectation survey conducted by Nextier, a leading public policy advisory firm in Nigeria.
Blueprint reports that the Soludo administration perception survey profiled 12 critical challenges, including access to affordable food, affordable housing, electricity, healthcare, jobs, land, motorable roads, pipe-borne water, public transportation, quality education, security, and the impact of multiple taxes on small businesses.
Participants in the survey, who are Anambra state residents and indigenes, including those who reside outside the state, identified the most pertinent challenges as security (84.7 percent), jobs (83.8 percent), and electricity (79.1 percent). All respondents that took part in the survey were adults aged 18 years and above.
The survey, which was released, Wednesday, used a structured instrument with 10 questions segmented into three main sections.
While questions in the first section elicited the respondents’ demographic information, the second section focused on the critical sectoral challenges in as perceived by the respondents and measured their expectations from Soludo’s administration; and the third section focused on the perceived challenges that may affect his governance agenda.
According to the survey report, the specific objectives were to ascertain the perceived critical challenges requiring state government intervention; assess the level of optimism and expectations of Ndi Anambra on Soludo’s effectiveness in tackling the identified critical challenges and ascertain the perceived threats to the actualisation of his governance agenda in the State.
The cross-sectional survey relied on online and in-person data collection to obtain input from 560 randomly sampled respondents across 21 local government areas in the state, while respondents outside filled out the survey shared via social media channels.
The Nextier survey report constitutes part of a series of governance aids to help the administration track their performance and how it resonates with the people.
Survey respondents, however, fear that certain factors could compromise Soludo’s efforts despite the governor’s apparent preparedness.
These factors include corruption, political sabotage, inadequate funding, weak public service, the negative influence of party members, poor cooperation from the State legislature, the structure of the federal system and the overbearing power of the federal government, insecurity, and litigation.
The survey concluded that Ndi Anambra were aware of the critical challenges requiring state government intervention, therefore, Soludo’s administration could benefit from running a people-centred government with the best people.
“The policies and programmes should be evidence-informed and driven by a logical theory of change, the response advised in the survey.
“The government should continuously assess its programmes and use the lessons learned to improve effectiveness,” said Nextier, which plans to run the survey every quarter to track the trend as the government continues to implement its policies and programmes.
