Anambra State governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, last week marked one year in office. His Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Ifeanyi Okoma, in this interview, speaks on the landmark achievements, including the state of roads, tax issues, development of new towns, and the constraints of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA)-led administration. CAJETAN MMUTA met him and reports:
Sir, how would you score your administration in the last year in office?
God has been so faithful to us, and we have achieved a lot in our one year in office. It has also come with a lot of challenges, especially as it concerns the state of our road infrastructures in the state and also financially knowing fully well that the economy of the nation is actually not the best in view of the circumstances and situation.
The income to the state has almost been zero, and since we came in March, we have not been able to receive anything from oil, and oil has actually been the mainstay of the economy.
Most budgets are predicated on 80 per cent from oil, and unfortunately, we have gotten nothing. But that has not deterred us, and like Mr Governor may say, no excuses, but by the grace of God, under his leadership and guidance and direction, we have been able to award more than 261 km of roads, excluding bridges and flood control infrastructure across the state and local government areas.
First of all, you have to actually look at our mantra which is one person, one Anambra, one objective and one goal. So, all the infrastructure we are doing, we are doing to uplift Anambra State as a livable and prosperous homeland, and it is actually a homeland for itinerant people. So, there is nothing political about what we are doing. Our eyes are on the ball, and what we want to achieve is basically to create a homeland. The roads that we are doing are critical and strategic. For us, we are looking at the critical and strategic roads and roads that will alleviate the sufferings of our people and open up. I give you one instance. If you leave Oba Ofemili before now, which is the food basket of the state, you will have to go through several local government areas, and it would take you three hours to get to Awka.
We think that it is not acceptable to us, and so we are doing a road that comes from Amansea to Ebenebe; Ugbenu and Oba Ofemili. This is about 26km of road, and despite the fact that it is not yet completed, our people can now ply the road and come from here and it will take you one hour which used to be a journey of about three hours before getting to Awka.
Another strategic road is Mmiata Anam to Nzam, and you know that Nzam is the local government area in Nigeria that is not accessible during the rainy season. You can imagine the sufferings of our people for 31 years. It has a local government headquarters, and to come to Awka, you have to take a boat to get to Illa in Delta State. From Illa, you take a transport to Asaba, and now get to Onitsha and then get to Awka.
Mr Governor said this is not acceptable to him, and he has decided and we are bent on doing that road. As we are talking now, you can drive from here to Nzam, despite the security challenges. Our eyes are on the ball, and it is actually going to open up a new axis of the economy of the state.
We are working to connect that road to Lokoja and that would become a gateway to old Eastern Nigeria and the South-South because you don’t need to travel far because you can get to Lokoja in less than 30 minutes you are in Nzam and in less than 45 minutes to another one hour you get to Awka. So, it is a new axis of development and new Economic activities that are going to open up.
So, what we are doing are strategic roads and it will have a lot of impact on our people that have one agenda. Another road is the one that moves from Amansea to Ufuma and that road before now; for you to come from Ufuma takes a lot of time but with that road, we have linked up Anambra South with Anambra Central and this Senatorial zone creation doesn’t change us from being one people and one state but for easy development.
Before you come in from Ufuma, it takes you two hours but Ufuma to Awka now takes you 45 minutes and yet the road has not been completed and it is a 36 km road project. We have asphalted 19 kilometres to 20 km and what we are doing differently between this road and other roads is that it is not just ordinary roads but roads that would outlive this administration and the next administration that would come.
Assuming we are doing eight years in office it would outlive it and the next eight years of the next administration and the maximum design of those roads is twenty years because we have seamless stabilization we found out one of the major issues is that Anambra is the erosion capital of Nigeria and what causes it is run off water from road construction and so in doing this we are very particular about the hydrological design and proper termination of the stormwater. These are the things that are different from what we are doing.
Anambra has the largest markets in West Africa going by the quantum of goods and investment inflow as well as people who come into the state but the road infrastructure network has been the bane, what exactly are you doing about it?
I don’t know the benchmark upon which you classify the Onitsha main market as the largest in West Africa and that is giving it its past glory.
Onitsha is a dying town and people are moving out of Onitsha and going to Asaba (Delta state) and this is the major concern of this administration. So, we want to inject new life into Onitsha. We have the motor spare parts market in Nnewi but the way we do things before is not the way we are doing it now.
Today for the purposes of your question, we are doing a couple of roads in Onitsha and Onitsha is so dear to the heart of Governor Charles Soludo’s administration and he has decided to start the green and clean homeland initiative from Onitsha which he recently flagged off and we want to make sure that Onitsha comes back to its past glory.
The Professional examination you took last is as good as last year that you wrote it and that is why I query about Onitsha being the largest market in West Africa. So, we are going to make sure that it returns to its past glory and this is despite the fact that we have no finances. Just one year in office the testimony and determination will be there and people are seeing what we are doing. We have desilting Nwangene and to some extent, we have to stop in some areas to make sure that what we are doing is permanent. We have done that to Sakamori and we shall lift Onitsha from where it is now to the pride of Anambra state.
Awka appears to be congested and there is this need to open up and expand the capital town to neighboring towns. What is your government doing to make this dream come true?
We are building some new cities; we are trying to put up Entertainment City, Pharmaceutical City, and Industrial City among others. This is to mitigate the problems of connection in Awka town and for the entertainment city we are doing a prototype in Agulu to show the world how it is going to be. We have an industrial city going on in Ogboji , we have another city in Achalla and many other places as well as an export emporium and by this, no Anambra youth would want to go out of the state.
This is being done because economic and environmental factors take us out of Anambra state but when we complete the project no child in Anambra would want to leave the state for business out of pressure unless by choice.
The Ekwulobia flyover has been raising doubt about the settlement of houses and the attendant litigations that may disturb the project?
First of all, you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. We want to create a livable prosperous new smart city in Anambra state and we have the political will to do that.
We do not see the issue of mitigation in that project because we held a stakeholders meeting of Ekwulobia people and Aguate people in general and the question was simple, do you want a flyover and they said yes and we told them that we want to take them to another place and they said no! insisting that they want a fly over. You see no government or governor would want his people to suffer and Mr. Governor does not sleep, he thinks and dreams about the infrastructural development of Anambra state. If you have visited the area during the festive season you will agree with me that you can stay five hours in the traffic before you get to where you are going.
You spend six hours from Lagos to Ekwulobia and you are going to Uga for instance and you now spend five hours at the hold-up in Ekwulobia and some people pass the night at the hold-up and you would not like to come home again.
It is worrisome that Anambra has been turned into a funeral state where big men and women stay outside Anambra state but only come home when they have funerals to attend and this is because of the state of our infrastructure.
In the case of Arroma to Amaenyi in Awka we have just spent one year in office and we shall tackle that road and other roads in the area. One cannot fix it in one day but we will get it right within the ambit of the available funds at our disposal.
We all need good things in life and we are ready to provide them but all that we need is funds. Our economy is about N6 trillion and the tax revenue is about N 20 billion and it doesn’t make sense. We are asking our people that own investments outside the state to relocate to Anambra or have their residence in Anambra so that they pay part of their taxes here in the state so that by the end of the day we shall have to make Anambra the pride that we are looking for. Anambra people owe a lot of thanks to the governor for what he is doing and at some point, I had to ask him how he has been able to achieve this in one year without loans or grants. Recall that we applied for a loan of N100 billion which has been approved but we are yet to take the loan and we are paying contractors, and consultants salaries, pensions and gratuities with the little that we have.
In all your projects how have you been able to factor in the local contractors in terms of patronage?
We have engaged a lot of local contractors in our projects and as it stands today we have up to six local contractors doing projects in our state and they are doing fantastically well and each time we award contracts to foreign contractors my heart bleeds because this money we would have given to our local contractors that will help them build capacity so that if we give you a job we don’t have to fight you or chase you about. Today we have MB Infrastructures doing fantastically well at Umuogbu Awka and the company is doing flood control, we have Master Holdings, doing Eziechi road at Ifite Ukpo junction, we have ROJEL that is in Ihiala as well as Hammakork also in Ihiala among others.
Last year’s flooding incident was massive and NEMA has announced a likely flood disaster coming up, how prepared are you?
Let me say this, it is a National issue that has an impact in different parts of the country, and fir us to fully mitigate this we need the federal will.
This is because water is released from our damn and from the one in Cameron and for it not to overflow our own dams we have to open our own valves and open it in such a way that it flows along the lines and the morphology of the river channels which is Niger and Venue is overran and nature designed the channel to contain the volume of water and when it is over flooded what happens is that the spill over and that is flooding.
We are thinking ahead of it and we are carrying out total distilling of our drainages and water channels. Recall that before now floods carry three to four children each year, especially from Otumoye channels but because of our proactive nature, we have not had this incident. Some recommendations have been made to the Federal government and one of them is to dredge the River Niger so that it would increase the carrying capacity and take part in this flood.
Another one is to release water on time so that it can come as a flood and these are the things to be done by the Federal government. But on our own side, we are doing what we can to control it and create channels for it in due time.
