Abia In A Hurry To Develop

Abia In A Hurry To Develop – Hon Ubani
Hon Eziuche Ubani is the Commissioner for Works in Abia State. In this interview, he speaks on the evolving infrastructural revolution in the state, the challenges and the progress they have made despite the two years political turbulence they had to deal with. CHIBUZO UKAIBE, was there for LEADERSHIP Friday.
There is so much talk about the infrastructural revolution going on in Abia State, many people think it’s just the usual political hype. How do you react to this?
Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, has been working very silently since his election into office in 2015. We are aware of the fact that Abia State has been in the news, most of the time, for the wrong reasons. So, he decided to do the rebranding by keeping to his promise and doing something concrete that shows a new face of Abia State; the face of industry and diligence. He is executing projects that rise above the natural average. In fact, when the national chairman of PDP and other dignitaries came to see some of the projects, they were amazed at the quality and level of work done in the state. But this is no surprise because the governor says if he decides to tackle a project, it will hurt him that after he has left office, somebody else will start working on same project there because he didn’t do it so well and that is the reason we chose very quality contractors. For instance, Umuagu/Umuda in Umuahia north, has been ravaged by erosion for about 35 years and the government decided to do something about it. The project is being undertaken by an agency called the Newman which is partly financed by the World Bank. But the governor came and started paying counterpart funding and he is doing that for all the big projects.
There is also the investment building conceived by the governor. It is a one-stop shop designed to promote and ensure ease of doing business in Abia. It is designed in such a way that if you come into the state to do any kind of business, all the agencies that you will require to start the business are domiciled in one place; whether it is about tax, land, all the rates, all sorts of acquisition etc. That essentially cuts down your turn around time for business startup. The building was inaugurated by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, sometime last year when he visited Abia. In Isiala-Ngwa, there is a poultry village located in Umuosu. It is an inclusive poultry line of business where we have the rearing of chicken and all other affiliates in the value chain. This will provide employment to so many people, because it involves growing, processing, marketing and all sorts of businesses that are identified with the poultry industry. The governor believes that it is a veritable instrument to empower a lot of people and create a new generation of entrepreneurs in the state from agriculture.
Neighbouring states have built their roads to borders of Abia State. What is the state government doing about ensuring it constructs its own side of road to ease commerce and transportation?
We also have the Umuaro and Ekwarazu roads that lead to Akwa Ibom State. Abia is surrounded by seven states and most of those states have built their roads to their borders with Abia. So, we felt that as a state, on which these other states depend on for most of their goods and services, it makes sense for us to begin to connect along those borders so that we can accelerate trade and commerce. And with the atrophy of Ekot Ekpene to Aba road, an alternative access was required for them to continue to trade, from Cross River State all the way to Cameroon. All these people come to trade in Aba. Since the governor could not handle the federal roads, he is opening up alternative access roads for people to continue to come and purchase goods from Aba, and the Umuaro and Ekwarazu roads are among them. Once the roads were cleared, Akwa Ibom people, as well as others, started using it and we have gone far. It will be completed in the next one month, it is a road of about 9.2kms. At the last time we checked, we were at 6.8kms, so it is just a little thing left to connect Akwa Ibom. But it is serviceable and useable now. The earth work and stone basing have been done, the Asphalt part is what’s left.
What is the concept behind the work center in the Aba, and how cost effective has it been in the face of current economic realities?
The philosophy behind it is creating new generation of entrepreneurs, manufacturers and craftsmen. Aba is renowned for this. Explaining how he got the vision, the governor noted that Abia State matched the federal government’s 3.5bn Naira requirement for the UBEC programme, which was about 5.6bn Naira required to be spent on building of schools and equipping them with furniture and all sorts of things. So, the governor thought that was something that could be of value for new set of entrepreneurs who could make furniture and all kinds of supplies for the educational sector.
So, somebody pounced on the idea and set up a factory that is manufacturing those things. The concept has been tied to Education for Employment (E-for-E) programme of the government, where people who finish school, can go and learn skills or crafts like welding, tailoring, furniture making as the case may be. Presently, that factory has been making supplies to the state government. In fact, the governor of Ebonyi State, at the spur of the moment, placed orders for the factory to make supplies to Ebonyi State, when he came and saw what was being accomplished.
Aba is also noted for tailoring. But we are looking at the next level, away from the primordial family-based business of one sewing machine. We have set up a factory and assembly lines for cloth manufacturing, where one person does one thing on the node. The full factory is being manned by expatriate staff from Philippines who are also passing down the skills to the locals. It is growing and they are beginning to get orders. There are 250 people who are employed there now and there is a school right there where people who want to learn these skills, can go and be taught in a class room setting.
Aba is famous for having one of the biggest markets in the South-east Ariaria market which serves customers from as far as Cameroon. But that markert has not been operating at full potential because of bad road and flooding what is the government doing about it?
Fox road is where the Abia gold mine, the famous Ariaria international market, is located. For those who don’t live in Abia, the image that you see on social media on Aba are generated from the pool of waters in those areas. Also, there is a popular place for which Abia has been denigrated, called Ukwumango. Nobody has passed there in 15 years because of flood. During the rainy season, people don’t come to buy goods from Ariaria market because there is no access road. So, the trading window is barely a few months, they do business during rainy season. Their customers would rather go to Onitsha or elsewhere to buy goods whereas, the market is nearer for them. In order to help the traders and in turn grow the state’s economy, the governor had to intervene. A major obstacle was the place called Ifo-obara point, which is the lowest point in Aba. Practically, all the run-off water assemble there. How to discharge the water became a challenge. We got a Dutch consultant. Besides building the road, they insisted that we will have to install pumps that will pump the water for over 6.7kms to the Aba River. So, it wasn’t just the road that we were looking at.
Once we signed up to do the pipeline, we needed to test it during the rainy season so that we could ascertain if it was workable and functional before speeding up the building of the Ariaria and Fox road because that was the reason previous administrations failed in fixing the road. So, we did all that amid a fresh challenge of evacuating about 45 buildings. Those buildings were not supposed to be there because it was a natural wet land but the people reclaimed it and built there. A lot of political will was required to remove those buildings so that we could do the work. We were able to do solid drainage to cover the entire area, dualised the road and put a median. It is interesting to note that the last rainy season was the only season that Ariaria was not flooded after 21 years. This is because those drains were in place. So, the design we had for that place has started working. We tested the pump during the last rainy season and it worked. The contractor, Setraco, is working very hard on the road, we just have about 300metres to link the Port Harcourt express way.
You could drive from Port Harcourt express way to Brass right now which hasn’t happened in a very long time; we have succeeded in that area. There is also the road interchange at Osisioma junction. The reason for the interchange is that for a long time, that junction has been a very frightening place. It was like the Oshodi of those days, anything could happen to you there, therefore people were always worried about how to pass through that area. For those going to Port Harcourt, Bayelsa and wherever, it was a sight of terror. The government decided that the best thing to do was to have an interchange and then we have vehicles for us to manage traffic in that place so that vehicles coming from Umuahia and going to Port Harcourt, would drive up and go as the case may be and we have a roundabout underneath. That is unfolding now.
How much did all these projects cost the state government?
I cannot tell you the actual amount that we have spent in executing these projects now. The reason is that we have only one centre of base, no e-payment, which is the office of the accountant general. But as for projects in the ministry of works, we know the proposed cost of these projects.
What’s the spread of the projects across the Senatorial zones, is it not over concentrated in some areas than others?
Our projects are spread across all the three senatorial districts. I have had to answer questions on why we have to concentrate on Aba. Aba is one place where not so much happened in the last 16 years and that appears to be by some kind of agreement by the state that once somebody from that side of the senatorial district assumes governorship, he will concentrate there but that is not what our motivation is. Everybody in Abia has one or two things to do with Aba. Aba is the hub of the state, everything happens in Aba. The economy of Abia is in Aba. Very few people live in the communities, all of them are living in Aba. They go home on festive periods because they have their businesses in Aba. Therefore, whatever you do in Aba, you are also doing for the entire state. But more importantly, we feel that the reason we have businesses is to enable them grow, so we are providing infrastructures for businesses and entrepreneurship to thrive.
As such, if we do that very well, it means that the economy of Abia will increase in terms of benefits because our philosophy has changed from just building roads and bridges that lead to nowhere, to building roads and bridges that lead to areas of business and economic centre. And, it is in Aba that you have many of them. The Arochukwu road, for example, has two huge rubber plantations belonging to the state and there are very big palm plantations there also. So, that road is the major centre of agriculture in Abia. By building that road, we are also trying to raise the real estate valuation of the cocoa estate that we have. There is cocoa plantation around Arochukwu, which is the need the road is designed to serve.
The state has had political crisis for two years because of litigations and now you have less than two years before governorship elections, do you think that between now and May 15, 2019, all these projects would be completed?
I think we have come to understand that government is work in progress. Some of the projects we are working on right now were started by the previous administration. For instance, the Arochukwu project was started by the previous administration; it didn’t make sense to this governor to abandon them because the road is supposed to serve the Abia people. Therefore, if one government starts one road, it makes sense for whomever comes after to complete it and that is why we don’t have abandoned projects around Abia. During the crisis and the court cases, we continued to work. As it is today, we don’t have any worries about the next election, I am not saying the results have been called but I think that if we want to be fair, this governor has done enough to deserve an easy election. Nevertheless, we will continue to work, we are not worried and bothered about that, we will continue to work until the Election Day. That is the kind of mindset around here.
So, when then is the time line for these projects to be completed?
In project cycle, they don’t need to be completed at the same time because they were not conceived at the same time. There are some that are very complex. The Port Harcourt road that we have started now, if we are going to build a six lane motor way, with a dedicated BRT lane and drainage from beginning to the end, from my own experience in project management, I don’t think I want to indulge in the luxury of saying that it is going to be completed in the next one year or thereabout because even in Lagos State, where they have all the money, I can tell you one or two projects that overshot their project cycle because it happens.
Talking about the stadium, Nigerians are great football enthusiasts, when will the Enyimba stadium be completed? On the completion of the stadium, the contractor said by the end of February 2018, so we wait and see. We have done all the things around it, including the roads. We are trying to put light and we have paid substantial amount of money and so what is left to pay him now is not up to about 15 percent of the cost of the project. Therefore, what excuse will he have not to deliver?
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