Abstract:
Between May 1999 and 2007, Anambra state went through six administrations; namely Chinwoke Mbadinuju, Chris Ngige, Peter Obi, Virgie Etiaba Andy Uba and back to Peter Obi. Within the period, Anambra state received a total N213, 262, 725, 656.33 from Federation Account for the state and local governments. This excludes funds generated from internal sources. Despite these huge financial resources, the service delivery and condition of living of the people were still essentially low. This situation was manifested by the apparent drop in the individual person’s capacity to satisfy his basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. This raises the question on the relationship that exists between governance and human security in Anambra state. Human security includes the condition necessary for the survival, livelihood and dignity of the individual, the respect of human right, and access to education, healthcare as well as ensuring that each individual has opportunities and choices to fulfill one’s potentials. The process of achieving better condition and changing the situation of insecurity is entrusted to the state through the process of governance. Governance connotes the manner in which power is exercised in the management of the resources of a group of people for the attainment of set objectives. It involves the executive, the legislature, the judiciary and the bureaucratic machinery – the public bureaucracy – at all levels. The central aim of this study was to evaluate the place of governance in the enhancement of human security in Anambra state. Specifically, it sought to establish the connection between governance and the state of health service in Anambra state; analyze the impact of governance on education in the state; determine how the policy of the state administration impacted on human rights situation; ascertain if there the relationship between inadequate planning and implementation of policy programmes by the state administration and the condition of poverty and personal security in Anambra state. Data for the study were generated through the primary and secondary sources. The primary sources included structured questionnaire modeled after the Likert Scale and interviews. The area of study was 9 local government areas: three local governments each were randomly selected from the three senatorial zones in the state. The main population of the study included public servants in the state from grade levels 13 and above. The actual number of this category of staff is 4752. From among them, 237 staff representing 5% of the entire population was randomly selected and used for the study. Another Five hundred and Sixty Two (562) persons selected from the general public but taking into consideration the members of the civil society organization was also selected as samples and used in the work also. The secondary sources included books, official documents, journals and conference papers. The analysis of data was based on the “Sequential Analytic Technique” of data analysis, a descriptive statistics method using the medium (centile), and the inter-quartile range (Q). The study was anchored on the Systems Theory that helped us to measure the impact of funding and policy formulation and implementation on governance in Anambra state. At the end of the study, it was found that governance has not impacted positively on human security in Anambra state within the period under study. First, in the area of health, it was found that 45 doctors have left the services of the state health system leaving only 70 doctors by the end of 2007. Many of them left due to poor payment and bad condition of service. The HIV/AIDS increased in its prevalence rate from 3.8% by the end of 2004 to 5.6% by the end of 2007. Secondly, there were no sustained policies in the area of qualitative education as funding over the years which averaged 4.5% of the budgetary allocations were inadequate for the sector. The drop-out rate in the state schools maintained 2% increase annually due to poverty and low budgetary allocation of less than 10%. Thirdly, the incidence of poverty increased from 32.2% in 1996 to 85% by 2007, while non-poor accounted for 14.7% of the population. The various administrations did not evolve policies to reduce poverty until 2006 when agricultural loan packages, skill acquisition and technical education were enunciated. Fourthly, human right abuses were high in the families, work places, police stations and check points. Finally, the public managers and other public servants were not properly involved in policy formulation and various implementation required in the state.
