Our strategy is yielding dividends –Ikpeazu
As a scientist, Okezie Ikpeazu, Ph.D Governor of Abia State proceeds from the known to the unknown. That perhaps explain what looks like his obsession with Aba, the legendary bastion of innovation, commerce and industry in the former Eastern Region of Nigeria. Since his election in 2015, Ikpeazu, a university lecturer and administrator before venturing into politics, has thrown himself into the task of transforming Abia with the methodical approach of a scientist and the trained caution of a private sector-groomed administrator. That explains the bold steps towards the provision of infrastructure in Aba while ensuring that other sectors receive deserved attention. He spoke with the True Vision team in his office in Umuahia.
Aba was reputed as Nigeria’s industrial hub before the civil war, a status it has lost. What is your government’s action plan for restoring Aba to that lost glory? Also we know your effort in the area of reviving Aba’s shoe industry has earned you some plaudits, including an endorsement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. What measures have you put in place to guarantee sustainability, quality and market support?
Thank you very much. I want to start by saying for us in Abia, we understand that if get Aba right, we’ve got Abia right. I’m sure you’re conversant with the geography of Aba. Aba is at the centre of seven states, most of the South-South states and the South-East states. Aba is 30 minutes drive from Ikot Ekpene (Akwa Ibom State), 30 minutes from Port Harcourt (Rivers State), 45 minutes from Owerri (Imo State), about 40 minutes from Umuahia (Abia State capital), not more than two and half hours from Enugu and State.
What it means is that it is very easy. One of the problems of Aba is decay in infrastructure. But as bad as it is, Aba still has about 12 markets that are functional. Now, to drive Aba back to the front burner as an economic hub not only of South-East but Nigeria and West Africa, one has to first of all do the fundamental things which are the road infrastructure and power. These are what we regard as enablers.
Aba in itself, with the business activities around it, is a pillar of development. It is where our small and medium scale enterprises and manufacturing concerns reside. From the first day after our swearing in, we resumed in Aba and we were mindful of the fact that we might not have all the resources to do everything at the same time. We were also mindful of the fact that Aba gives you a construction window of just four months because of the heavy rains in this area. So, we decided to prioritise our intervention in this area because of the need for infrastructure.
We decided to mainstream roads that lead into and out of town so that we can ventilate the town. The other one is that we decided to focus on roads that lead to either the industrial clusters or the main market. That is why today, within the first 100 days in office, we tackled the Mere, Ukaegbu, and Umungwa Roads. These are roads that link people into Aba from Umuahia or from Ikot Ekpene. Unfortunately, the major roads: AbaOwerri Road, Port Harcourt Road and IKot Ekpene are all federal concerns. But we were not prepared to fold our arms and watch people suffer on those roads. We must do the roads for our people to use.
There are no federal c i t i z e n s : e v e r y b o d y comes from one state or another. So we are creating two alternative roads from Akwa Ibom because we didn’t have the requisite legal framework and background to go into federal roads. Moreover, we didn’t want to waste time writing letters back and forth to the federal government to allow us do the road. So, we’re doing a 7.5 kilometer road from Iruruka Road that is the New Umuahia Road up to Nlagu which is a border town to Akwa Ibom. The rest of the roads are passable up to Ikot Ekpene. Again, we’re doing another one at Ekwereazu which will connect and complement that road that my brother governor from Akwa Ibom is doing.
Though motorable at the moment, I’m sure that when we are through, the roads will be in a state where one can be sure that in one hour thirty minutes, one can be in Uyo from Aba and in 30 minutes you will be in Ikot Ekpene from Aba. We’re also mainstreaming roads that are leading to our major markets in Aba. If you look at Ariaria Market for instance, Ariaria is perhaps one of the biggest markets in Africa. Today, we b r o u g h t SETRACO to begin work on Faulks Road that leads you into Ariaria. Before now, it was impossible to get to the Aba-Port Harcourt Express Road from the city centre passing through Ariaria because of an area called Amagu or Ukwuoba Basin within the Ndiegoro Basin. In fact, the lowest point in Aba is that Ukwuoba Basin. Aba is the lowest point or the valley of Abia. That Ukwuoba Basin has given us problem for the past 25 years.
One of the problems of infrastructure in Nigeria is that the poor quality of jobs done by contractors?
Yes, I need to spend a little more time to talk about the quality of work we do. Abia is the only state from our economic bracket that maintains three “Grade A” construction companies. We have Arab Contractors working in Umuahia, we have SETRACO in Aba, and now we have a Chinese company doing the first flyover in Abia State around Osisioma and Aba. We are doing the flyover because of this economic nexus thing because if you can’t keep people in their market places as early as possible, it’s a problem because they are usually distracted and deprived of benefits. We decided to bring in these “Grade A” contractors just to send a signal to the people that we are doing projects that will outlive this administration. To further underscore that point, we introduced the cement pavement technology where we do nine inch concrete, PRC and then end up overlaying it with asphalt. The drainage we are constructing in Aba is such that won’t kick; no matter the kind of weight on it. All that we’re doing in Aba is to send signal to the average person coming to do business in the city that the infrastructure is of higher quality and to the people coming into Aba, there is some flavour of quality attached to everything that happens in Aba or being produced in Aba. We are doing roads that will last 20 years and beyond. As I speak today, we’ve mobilised to Port Harcourt Road. Though, it’s a federal road, Port Harcourt Road is the hub of manufacturing in Aba. What you see at Ariaria is sustained by the artisans at Port Harcourt Road. Time was when the engineering departments of Lever Brothers Nigeria PLC and Nigerian Textile Mills were sustained by the ingenuity of the boys at the Port Harcourt Road. I have said it in many fora that if you go to Port Harcourt Road Aba today and ask Aba people to produce a human being for you, they will produce something that looks like a human being but when you challenge him to call forth the human being, he will first of all tell you to pay him for producing a human being that cannot talk before venturing into trying to make it talk. This is my way of saying that around Port Harcourt Road, everything you want is there. Our target is that, at the end of the day, people can gain easy access to the roads leading to our major industrial clusters where the shoes are produced, where the textiles are manufactured and artisans are working on machines.
Looking at the jobs you’re doing in Abia State and the quality associated with them, we know they involve lots of money and knowing Abia as not too rich a state to be able to carry all the projects in the state at the same time, is there any way you are involving public private partnership in this whole arrangement to help you focus attention on others areas of governance without creating dissonance?
Let me tell you something. Another project which we undertook is what you are talking about now. What you just asked me now is the bankability of my administration because for you to bring in PPP, create stakeholder template and all that, you must have a bankable vision or polish that vision in such a way that will make people buy into it without much ado. That is why we started all these projects especially in Aba.
To the glory of God today, Abia is perhaps the only state that found itself on the CNN platform without paying one kobo. Ford Foundation came here and ran several weeks of commercials promoting ‘Made in Aba’ on the CNN. I’m not so particular about Aba because I like Aba, but because Aba is an already existing and well known brand. So, if I want to market Abia, I have to leverage on a brand that is known already to market the state and that is what we are doing. But one most painful thing that happens in Aba is that the people after spending about 18 hours and passing sleepless nights to produce a shirt, trousers, belt, bag and shoes f, he wakes up in the morning and stamp that material with Made in China or Dubai label, thereby giving credit to another youth somewhere that did not know anything about your work.
So, I had to do something about this mindset about self worth of our people and today, everywhere you go, you see Aba imprinted boldly on them: Made in Aba shoes, bags, belts and all that. This is the product of our people’s ingenuity and hardwork and we are proud of it. So, when we started this marketing, we were able to create a buy-in from the federal government. The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, who was the acting president as of that time declared Aba the SMSE CAPITAL of Nigeria. He followed that up with an executive order, one of which was that every military boot, every military hardware and every product that would be used in Nigeria, please exhaust the chances of Aba people being able to produce it. And that led to the first order for 50,000 pairs of military boots. If you multiply N10,000 by 50,000, that is simply N500 million and we have sold twice that quantity for NYSC boots, Nigerian navy boots, uniforms to police and all that. So by direct investment, we have got about N1.4billion to the Aba people from people around Nigeria West Africa and other African countries.
Has this rebranding led to any PPP arrangement between the state and any reputable investors?
Back to your question, classically speaking, we don’t have any PPP arrangement in the state now. But we are looking at the necessary documentations about the ongoing concessioning and bigger bottlenecks we might have with the federal government. That brings me to the issue of devolution of power. We’re saying to the federal government, you don’t have business owning roads in Abia. That money which you budget every year for roads in Abia and yet at the end of the day, nothing happens on them, give it to the states who wear the shoe that know where it pinches because we’re the one who are going to be booed on the Port Harcourt Road if I don’t do it, not the president. The president may stay for eight years in office but never visit Port Harcourt Road, but I as governor pass through that road more than two times a month. However, both the African Development Bank and the World Bank are interested in helping develop the state.
We have a 200 million dollar facility which has passed through the Senate and the Federal Ministry of Finance. If that comes, we will be able to not only redefine the infrastructural status of Abia State, but connect every local government headquarter in Abia by asphalted roads. We have what we call Trans-Abia High way that takes you through from Isiala Ngwa to Ikwuano to Arochukwu. So that takes you to Cross River. So, we have a clear picture of what we want to do. To the glory of God, by carrying out this Made-in-Aba campaign, our name, the Aba brand has gone far.
Recently, we had a successful Made-in-Aba fair in Abuja and another very successful Made-inAba fashion show in New York, USA. There, the Aba shoemakers and garment producers had to sit side by side with the best fashion parts of Ariaria. As I speak to you now, parts of Ariaria have been enjoying uninterrupted power for four weeks now on a pilot basis. The cost of power is a little higher, but it is cheaper than running diesel. I had a word with Geometrics and they were to give power at a cheaper rate. But I said to them, that is beautiful because we have become a beautiful bride to the extent that power vendors are now looking for us. To us, that will eventually drag down the cost of power supply in Aba and Abia State in general. So, we are gradually coming close to solving our power problems and that will definitely be a major boost to the industrial development of Aba in particular and Abia State in general.
Abia’s rich tourist endowments such as Azumini Blue River, Akwete Clothing Industry and Arochukwu Cave provide another avenue for diversifying the economy of the state and create huge employment. What is your government doing to boost tourism?
In our second cabinet which was inaugurated recently, we decided to mainstream Energy and Tourism by creating specific ministries to drive energy for industrial clusters in Aba. We created tourism because I want to start from the basics and we need to take stock of our tourism potentials. There is a huge beautiful waterfall in Uturu. In Uturu too, there is a pond where fish come to entertain people and display as if they are excited. They call it the dancing fish. We have so much but we need to take stock and gradually string them together. In Abia today, we have an annual marathon which has gone into AFN calendar sponsored by Magic FM. We want to also, within that week, organise our annual made in Aba fashion show. We decided to announce it at Abuja and New York and people are curious about the home of these products. We have achieved the curiosity we wanted to achieve in the minds of people when we did it in Abuja and New York and now we are bringing it home. It will debut this year and it will become an annual event.
Part of the highlights is that if you participate in the show, in less than two hours, your dress or your shoe would be ready with your names in-scripted on it. While we use that as an anchor, we’re going to provide a boat ride because I’ve tried to dredge the Aba River so that people can take a boat ride to the Blue River at Azumini. That dirty water you see at Aba River is what empties to become the Blue River at Azumini. There’s a miracle that happens there in my local government that purifies that water to become very crystal clear blue river like that. The only challenge is that we don’t have a five-star hotel in Abia. I have tried to unbundle that and I have been inviting people to come and be part of it.
Abia is such beautiful scenery. If you don’t like Aba, you must like Umuahia, if you don’t like Umuahia you must like Ohafia or Mbosi and all that. But then, the one we have which is Enyimba Hotel, two administrations before me ceded it to Aba Chambers of Commerce for N16million. I have offered them that; let them give me the hotel as it is. I know what to do with it. Unfortunately, the Aba Chambers of Commerce did not want to release it, maybe because of what they feel they make from their small hotels. There is this feeling that a five-star hotel within the city will cause bad business for the lesser ones. But they don’t understand that that will even make them do better. But we’re doing something about it.
What did you set out to achieve when you were elected and to what extent have you realised those benchmarks?
Simple: To make the lives of Abians better and easier and create more opportunities for development to thrive and we have not been looking back trying to achieve that as I told you.
