It was Robert Schuller the German author of the award-winning bestseller ‘Tough Times Never Last But Tough People Do’ who famously postulated that tough times no matter how harsh would always come and go when tough people are in charge. This admirable witticism becomes even more pertinent when tough leaders presiding over tough times are also endowed with rare humanitarian attributes such as milk of human kindness, fear of God, love, altruism, empathy and open-handedness.

To such leaders, tough times neither provide excuses for nonperformance nor embolden them to shirk their otherwise sacred obligations and responsibilities to their people. Rather, it provides a historic opportunity to touch lives in a very special way and in a manner that stands them out as go-getters, trailblazers, and lords over their tough situations.

Barely six months after the silent archiving Governor of Enugu State Rt. Hon. Lawrence Ifeanyichukwu Ugwuanyi broke a continental record by being the first African pillar of sports to fund a football club’s life assurance scheme to the extent of dolling out a whooping life assurance package of #20 million( through Rangers International) to its maiden beneficiary, the welfarist Governor has scored yet another first. He has this time approved and released a staggering sum of #24.6 million to as many as 246 law students of Enugu state origin at the Nigeria Law School. Under the novel humongous package, each benefitting student received the sum of #100,000( one hundred thousand naira only) to cushion the hardship he or she undergoes while in the nation’s elite school of jurisprudence.

By this gesture, Governor Ugwuanyi has once again gone down in history as the very first occupant of the lion building to offer such a lifeline to law students and the second after Chief Jim Nwobodo as Governor of the old Anambra state to pay bursary to students.

It would be recalled that both the Rangers’ life assurance feat earlier referred to as well as the law students’ novel intervention, took place between the months of June and July this year when the Coroner pandemic was at its peak, virtually crippling the entire world economy. A very critical time when some oil-producing states joined many other states to owe workers’ salaries thereby compounding the misery in a countless number of homes.

Not so for Enugu state by courtesy of a tenderhearted and empathetic leader in the person of Governor Lawrence Ifeanyichukwu Ugwuanyi who God brought just at the right time to save his people from anguish. No wonder the slogan that Enugu state under Governor Ugwuanyi is in the hands of God is hardly ever controvertible. Aside from paying regularly the most decent new minimum wage East of the Niger despite the pandemic meltdown and with paltry receipts from low oil revenue, the amiable Governor also found it necessary to remember as many as 246 indigent law students of Enugu state origin some of whom would have dropped out and ended their dreams of becoming lawyers had he not graciously and providentially intervened.

Those conversant with the environment of the law school would readily attest to the fact that the knowledge-intensive, highly revered, and the regimented institution has always been systemically programmed to prevent poor students from gaining access( or graduating even after admission) as it is often the mantra of law lecturers right from the university that the legal profession is jealously reserved for the noble and not for everybody.

To ensure that the exclusion and elimination conspiracy is sustained, it now takes a minimum of #2 million or thereabouts for a law school student to graduate from the yearlong professional programme. That excludes books and materials of different colorations and which is in fact the student’s business and no one else’s. Many law graduates for that reason do not bother to apply for admission into the institution to obtain a professional certificate and make do with their law degrees( LLB Hons.) which at best makes them academic lawyers.

It is against this background that many forward-looking people see what Governor Ugwuanyi did for the law students of Enugu state origin as highly remarkable, legendary, and humanitarian in ramifications. The 246 law students favoured will forever remain grateful to the tender-hearted Governor who God placed on the saddle during their own time to enjoy a privilege their predecessors never had.

The questions many have been asking since the Governor’s landmark gesture include: how come all the previous Governors before Ugwuanyi turned deaf ears to the hearty supplications of the poor law school students over the years despite the huge oil revenues at their disposal compared to the pitiable situation today? Did they not take into account the fact that such strategic intervention was absolutely necessary to beef up the state’s judicial manpower thereby placing it in a position of strength to compete for federal judicial appointments?
That’s a matter for another day.

Nevertheless, this gives credence to the protestations by well-meaning people that good governance goes beyond the mere provision of basic physical infrastructure( such as roads and bridges) but extends most importantly to the development of the human capital and without which both the government, the road or bridge contractor as well as laborers hired, all labour in vain as the human capital is indispensable to the management and continuous enjoyment of whatever is provided.

This latest welfarist intervention has therefore not only added to Governor Ugwuanyi’s many firsts in many areas but also singled him out as one of the greatest pillars of the judiciary not only in the state but also the country at large. From the unprecedented mass construction of judicial complexes in all the local government areas( being completed at the same time) of the state including brand new ultra-modern High and Magistrate court buildings, state-of-the-art Customary Court of Appeal complex situated at the three arms zone of the coal city, ongoing renovation of the state judicial headquarters, to the engagement of many new High Court judges and magistrates as well as over 150 law officers to quicken the dispensation of criminal justice and decongest the prisons, the Enugu state judiciary, in particular, has never had it so good.

From Josephat Omeke Esq. Writing from Enugu

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share