Abia State was created out of the old Imo State of Nigeria on the 27th of August 1991 by the military government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida with the excellent sobriquet of ” God’s Own State ” with the original and divine intent to turn the people’s development fortunes for the better. Abia started its journey of hope for general prosperity for a marathon eight years before the emergence of a civil democracy on the 29th of May 1999, when the young state entered into its unfortunate circumstances of public criminality, organized and carried out by the People’s Democratic Party led government which plundered and pulverized it for a terrifying long haul of twenty four years.
But on the 29th of May 2023, the PDP led terror came to an end when Dr. Alex Chioma Otti was sworn into office as the new Governor of the State under the banner of the Labour Party of Nigeria. A change that ushered in a season of hope and high public expectations in terms of recovery, development, and new improved lease of life for the people and our dear country in general. It was on this premise that this year’s anniversary has been officially titled “Abia: Hitting the Re-set Button” by the State government, bearing in mind the reality of the enormous work and sacrifices needed to pick up the state and its people from the cruelty and mean behavior of political actors of the past twenty four years. As the State clocks thirty two years of its existence in Nigeria’s Federal Republic, the present state government is currently working with some of Nigeria’s brightest persons to lay the cards on the table and format a new development agenda which will ultimately lead to the proverbial promised land.
Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, Nigeria’s former Minister for Education and Good Governance Advocate, on the auspices of the State government will comprehensively discuss the new dream in the anniversary lecture billed for 29th August 2023 at the International Conference Centre in Umuahia the state capital, also marking the three months anniversary of Dr. Alex Otti’s Governorship tenure in his Abia State Labour Party base. What a beautiful and divine coincidence? According to the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) Prof. Kenneth Kalu, and Commissioner for Information, Prince Okey Kanu, during a press conference on Tuesday 22nd August 2023 in Umuahia, said that 2023 celebration would mark the beginning of a departure from the past without a vision. Kalu and Kanu unanimously reiterated that the Otti administration has come to make Abia work for all and not for a few opportunists to enjoy the state resources while others starve, and urged all Abians to rally round the new government to achieve maximum impact.
Dr. Alex Otti on his own believes strongly that the Abia at 32 Anniversary must be a period of sober reflection on what has happened to the state and its people in the past twenty four years of public recklessness by some beings without human feelings to say the least.
That is the major reason why the First Lady of the State, Mrs Priscilla Otti had to start this year’s celebration with visits to less privileged homes, orphanages and hospitals around the state where she commiserated with inmates and victims of our past administrations with elaborate gifts and spiritual upliftment as she unfolded new plans for the future of the vulnerable ones among us. A ceremony completely devoid of award jamborees and unnecessary spending of government funds as part of the measures to stop wastages and ensure prudence in financial management. The reason why the government simply organized a novelty football match between members of the executive and legislative arms of the government in the capital city of Umuahia.
Taking into consideration that the immediate past PDP government refused blatantly to officially hand over even a sheet of paper to Dr. Alex Otti and the Labour Party until 29th May 2023 when they equally and brazenly refused to attend the handover ceremony at Umuahia Central Stadium, not even sending one past officer of the outgoing government to represent them, set a stage that displayed the picture of what quantity of rot and rubbish to be inherited from that past brigandage termed as an administration. But much as the government of Dr. Alex Otti aspires wholeheartedly to rescue Abia from its gross misfortunes, it also specifically intends to recover Aba the great Enyimba City of the southeastern Nigeria which is a major investment hub in Nigeria and the West African subregion.
Dr. Otti expects all Abians to deeply reflect on the total situation of every location in the state, beginning from Aba, its commercial nerve centre crying for absolute remodeling from its total abandonment by successive governments. As it stands today, some part of Abia like Arochukwu can only be accessed through Akwa Ibom State in the South-South region of Nigeria. What a situation? The Ukwa oil producing area of Abia State is a sorry state as there is no single roadway to access such an important community in a location known as God’s Own State. Aba called the Japan of Africa because of its ingenuity in the practice and gospel of copy technology by artisans and local engineers who are mostly located around the Port Harcourt Road axis of the town up to the famous Alaoji Spare parts market along Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway was simply shut down by bad access roads, criminal and malicious demolition by same past government.
Today, nobody can access the Alaoji Spare Parts Market through Port Harcourt Road, Obohia Road or any of the adjoining major roads that have become death traps and criminal dens occupied by extortionists until recently when Dr. Alex Otti arrived as the new sheriff in town.
The basic problem of Abia remains infrastructural decay of its roads and drainage system which the new government has moved in to tackle headlong and the poor and unhygienic sanitation system, pockets of insecurity resulting from total abandonment of some areas, lack of night life which is an offshoot of insecurity and infrastructural decay,lack of proper planning for emerging suburbs as buildings are erected recklessly. For the government headed by Dr. Alex Otti, fixing Aba is tantamount to fixing Abia, because there is no way one can talk about the progress of Abia without the complete restoration of Aba to its glorious past in the old Imo State, East Central State and former Eastern Region of Nigeria. The stark reality as the present state government sees it is that Port Harcourt Road, Uratta Road, Obohia Road, Ohanku Road, Old Express Road, Ozuomba Road, Ohazu Road, Cemetery Road, Omuma Road, Abayi Ariaria St. Mary’s Road, Aba Ikot Ekpene Road, Aba Azunini Opobo Road and other major and equally important roads are to be properly reconstructed, making it urgent that all hands must be on deck in the state.
The major and minor markets in the Enyimba City such as Ariaria International Market, Ngwa Road Market, Cemetery Market, Umuehilegbu Industrial Market, Power line, Bakassi Market, Shoe Plaza and many other small and medium scale (SME) centres have to be fine- tuned and remodeled by the present state government in the current herculean efforts to rebuild the city from its comatose status and return our homeland to its former level of utmost productivity, since today, all multinational companies have left, while most local businesses and industries have also closed down due to neglect spurned by past administrations in the state, a situation which calls for urgent concern by all and sundry at this point in time.
It is also important to restate in this writing that reformatting the civil service, education and industrialization must remain the keys and front burners on the agenda of the present administration as the thorough verification of authentic civil servants are still going on in all state government ministries, agencies, boards, parastatals, commissions and companies, to streamline the public service, eschew ghost workers and instill the required discipline and professionalism.
Meanwhile, a leadership and management retreat has been conducted by the new government for all its appointees in order to sharpen their reflexes over issues of public governance and administration which will put a final stop on the former business as usual which destroyed all facets and strata of the public service of Abia state under the past administrations. The retreat was taught by some of Nigeria’s finest minds, technocrats and scholars of repute for days at the very modern Panyu Hotel Aba.
Meanwhile the Dr. Alex Otti government has paid the whole workers in the state their three months salaries commencing a few days from the day he was sworn into office, alongside a systematic clearing of the backlog of wages owed this workers by the past administration which runs into a length of thirty six months in the past years. But today workers salaries at being paid promptly even before the ending of every month and a clear departure from the past which was characterized by a practice and doctrine of ‘ work no pay’.
The same government in such a short period of its time in power have been able to embark on a gigantic urban renewal project of carting away the total refuse churned out of Aba and Umuahia on a daily basis. There are no more mounds of refuse in our urban centres like it used to be during the PDP years and decades. Not only that, all drainage ways have been cleaned up as there are no more blocked drain lines in our cities. The beauty this time is that as the debris and dirt are scooped out from all gutters, they are equally loaded into into trucks and carted away unlike in the past when such garbage were left on the roads and walkways to constitute public health hazards.
The present government has also banned all illegal levies and tolls as earlier collected by touts and hoodlums who siphoned and embezzled government funds in the markets, motor parks, business premises, highways and motorways, industrial and manufacturing sites and outfits. There is also a full blown launch out on the rehabilitation of countless city roads in Aba and Umuahia and other locations. Above all, the present government of Abia State has launched a total attack on crime and banditry by its latest formation of a joint military, police and civil defence security squad known as Operation Crush and has procured brand new Toyota Hilux patrol vehicles for the officers on the job as a way of curtailing criminal activities in the entire length and breadth of the state. The same government recently inaugurated the judicial panel of enquiry for the recovery of appropriated and looted government properties manned by competent jurists and legal officers and prosecutors and investigators armed with full powers of prosecution and correction to serve as a deterrent for criminality and recklessness in public office in the future. Truly, the challenges are enormous, but the new government has started on an impressive note and Abians across board are happy, except mischief makers.
Dr. Charles Chinekezi is a Professional Journalist and a Chartered Management Professor (C.M.P.).