-John Okiyi Kalu
Prior to the inauguration of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu in 2015, the dominant image of infrastructure deficiencies in Aba, the commercial nerve center of Abia State, also known as Enyimba City, was the perennially dilapidated “Ukwu Mango” area of Faulks (Ariaria) Road, along with the fabled Ama Ikonne “river” believed to be unfixable because of alleged activities of a certain “mammy water” that residents believed lived around the area popularly called 7-Deck.
According to a prominent traditional ruler in Aba, Eze Isaac Ikonne, Enyi 1 of Aba, he once contemplated relocating from his palace along Faulks Road because of the seemingly intractable flooding of the vicinity which defied solutions for much of the 45 years he has been on the ancestral stool of his fathers. Indeed, when the military administration of former East Central State asked traders to relocate from Ekeoha market at the center of Aba to the current Ariaria International Market, the order was resisted because of the nature of the terrain of the area until sometime in 1974 when Ekeoha market was razed down by an inferno that destroyed the means of livelihood of thousands of post-civil war Igbo traders.
It is a historical fact that where Ariaria International Market is located along Faulks Road today is the lowest lying area in the western part of Aba while Ndiegoro is the lowest lying area in the eastern part of Aba. The soil around Faulks Road area was water logged and elephants used to freely walk the area, hence, Aba is known as Enyimba City. Indeed, attempts by administrations before Governor Ikpeazu to fix Faulks Road failed soon after as water continued to seep through the soil, especially around Ukwu Mango area where Ifeobara pond is located, and Ama Ikonne axis.
For more than 20 years before the election of Governor Ikpeazu it was impossible to drive through from Brass Junction to Enugu – PH Express Road junction and the people living around the area literally gave up hope of ever driving along Faulks Road, end to end. This fact was not lost on then newly elected Governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, who awarded a contract to an indigenous contractor, Bills Limited Civil Engineering Company, to reconstruct Faulks Road along with 6 other road projects on his first day at work.
But when he paid an inspection visit to Faulks Road, he was not satisfied that the quality of work being done by the contractor would permanently solve the problem of flooding and deliver a top class road to the people of the state. Promptly, he canceled the contract, moved the contractors out of site and made his now famous statement; “Ukwu Mango may have defeated my predecessors in office but with God on our side Ukwu Mango will not defeat me and I will commit to doing everything possible to solve this challenge for our people”.
With that mindset, the Governor invited a top class construction company along with others to make presentations on how to permanently fix the flooding challenge around the area as well as deliver a 4.8km road from Brass Street to Express junction. Setraco won the contract principally because the company brought in water management engineers from Netherlands to design a high tech engineering solution, after a detailed study of the project, that presented a viable solution to the Ifeobara Flood control aspect of the total project.
The project has four major components:
A. Dredging of the lowest point in Aba, the ifeobara pond, to enable it collect and pump out storm water from the area.
B. Tunneling from the pond to Waterside which is the major storm water collection point in Aba.
C Installation of pumps at the pond and along the pipe way to pump water in case of over flow into Ifeobara
D. Construction of the 4.8km dualized road
*To be continued
