Obuaku City: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Among the most brilliant ideas ever conceived by Igbo people in the last century was the Obuaku City concept. Apart from Biafra itself, the Obuaku City project was the most important in the history of our people. The idea was so beautiful, so revolutionary that the Igbo patriots who conceived it must be conferred with the designation of geniuses.

What is Obuaku City?

Obuaku City is a new metropolis designed by the government of
Abia State to serve as a strategic, commercial and industrial nerve centre in Igboland. The new city itself predates the creation of Abia State. Preliminary work started on the first Phase of the project in 1993 with the acquisition of 260 hectres of land from two communities of Obuzor and Uzoaku in Ukwa West LGA, two km from the Imo River Bridge along the Port Harcourt Enugu Expressway. The name of the new city Obuaku City was coined from Obuzor and Uzuaku, the two communities from which the land was originally acquired. The sum of N3million (at 1993 prices) was paid in compensation to the affected communities for their land while Eze J E Amadi Ezechi 1 of Ipu south autonomous community was paid N50,000 for the performance of the necessary Omenani rituals required before the contractors could gain access to the site. The present Obuaku City is located in an area of Igboland that saw intense commercial activities the pre-colonial era Ndokki-Azumini-Asa axis.

Why do we need a new City in Igboland today?

The Igbo population is growing rapidly at 3.5% per annum. Traditionally, Igbo population has dispersed to different parts of Nigeria and West/ Central Africa where they engaged in trade, artisan activities, education etc, developing their host communities. However, these host communities have begun to show hostility to the Igbo resulting in expulsions, massacres, forced conversion to Islam etc. This trend has been observed in Libya, Ivory Coast, Togo etc. The most persistent has been the frequent organised massacre of Igbo people in Northern Nigeria, which has been occurring with clockwise regularity since 1945. The introduction of Sharia law in Northern Nigeria is bound to exacerbate this trend. In addition to Sharia-related violence in Northern Nigeria, Igbo people are also at the receiving end of ethnic violence elsewhere in Nigeria- Lagos, Warri, Abeokuta etc where they have been targeted by ethnic militias. Thus everywhere, the Igbo-not-welcome-here sign is going up whi!
ch can longer be ignored. An innovative way of accommodating the vast majority of Igbo people within Igboland and providing them with a means of livelihood must therefore be found. Thus, a new growth centre, a consciously planned urban centre has to be built in Igboland from the scratch.


What about Aba, Enugu, Onitsha, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Umuahia, Asaba etc?

Obuaku city will complement rather than compete with existing Igbo cities. No existing Igbo city was consciously planned to absorb the growing Igbo population in mind. Almost all grew by accident from colonial outposts. Aba grew out of an old colonial garrison, Enugu grew as a result of the discovery of coal at Ngwo and Port Harcourt arose out of the need to ship coal from Enugu. Onitsha grew as a trading post on the bank of the River Niger while Umuahia emerged as a produce collection centre on the railway line between Enugu and Port Harcourt. Owerri was at the intersection of many roads etc. These cities continue to grow haphazardly without any purpose or direction. None has a population of up to 1 million. It is clear that Igboland needs a new industrial and commercial centre, planned from the very beginning to accommodate a huge and growing population hence Obuaku City. Without the city of Tokyo, over 15million Japanese would be wondering around the globe harassed by so!
ns-of-the-soil. Obuaku City must be created to accommodate at least 10 million Igbo who are now marooned and harassed in nooks and crannies around Nigereia.


At the commissioning of Obuaku City project, the then governor of Abia State said:

“…the experience of congestion in our old towns like Aba and Umuahia must not be repeated…our target must be to develop a new city with proper layouts and modern infrastructure, healthy environment capable of sustaining rational development…”

According to Megquip Engineering Services, the main contractor handling the project, the purpose of Obuaku City is to abandon the chaotic urban development in Igboland and construct an integrated city, a complete city with all the required infrastructural facilities and services ideal for a modern city.


Nigeria already has Commercial Capital in Lagos, Abuja Capital City, so, why Obuaku City?

Nigeria is not one country. There are three major nations in Nigeria, each bigger than several African states combined. In the longrun, Nigeria will disintergrate because the competing religious, ethnic, social and cultural pressures will never be contained in a single state. In anticipation of this, each nation is jostling for what it can get out of Nigeria before it collapses, the way other unworkable British-made federations in Africa eventually collapsed.

(a) The Yoruba have cornered huge oil resources to build a befitting capital for themselves in Lagos- the future capital of Oodua Republlic. Having put in place all the infrastructures they need for their autonomy, they have now unleashed their ethnic militia, the OPC to harass non-Yoruba and drive
them out of Lagos.

(b) The Hausa-Fulani and their allies have taken the cue and are using their own share of petro-dollars to develop the future capital of Arewa Republic, Abuja at a neck-breaking speed. They hired a Japanese architect who designed Abuja to look like the Islamic Crescent. All the architectural designs in Abuja betray its future as the capital of an Islamic republic. Indeed, during the Abacha years, some zealous Northerners had already started to implement the strict Islamic dressing code even in the so-called federal ministries in the so-called federal capital, a taste of what is coming.

(c) The patriots who conceived the Obuaku City project are the geniuses of Igboland. The Igbo is the only major Nigerian group that is not planning for its future. While others are sinking petro-dollars into infrastructural development in their future capital cities, there is no major development work whatsoever going on in Igboland. Instead, Igbo businessmen extract surplus values from Otuocha Onitsha, Aba, Nnewi and other parts of Igboland to build hotels, retaurants, factories in Abuja and Lagos and other parts of Western and Northern Nigeria in the mistaken belief that they would get higher returns in their one Nigeria. Those peple have learnt nothing from the Biafran war and its aftermath. The Igboman should cut his losses and invest his future in things that will work- Obuaku City is Igbo modest answer to Lagos and Abuja. Without Obuaku City, the Igbo will get their eventually autonomy alright, but our people will soon be queuing up for visas to return to Arewa and O!
odua republics. How shameful!

Ndiigbo cannot continue to repeat the same mistakes. In the 1960s, Igbo academics- Eni Njoku, Kenneth Dike etc. expended their time, energy and intellects building academic institutions in Lagos, Ibadan etc. in the name of one Nigeria. But as soon as those places were up and running, they were booted out and replaced by the sons-of-the-soil with no regards to laid down procedure. With hindsight, Ndiigbo should have left those places for the sons-of-the-soil and established the universities of Owerri and Umuahia in the 1960s. They should have appointed those Igbo academics to head those places rather than engage in a futile, un-winnable battle elsewhere. It was not until the 1980s that the Igboman learnt to set up his own universities in Igboland. Today, except by preference, most Igbo academics are working in relative peace within Igbo territory, leaving Ibadan, Lagos, Ife, Ago Iwoye etc. to the sons-of-the-soil. We can do the same today. Why waste our time fighting the Yor!
uba in Lagos, why fight Hausa in Kano and Abuja? Why don’t we cut our losses now and set up our own city from the scratch- Obuaku City?

Who will Finance Obuaku City?

Obuaku City was a joint venture between the World Bank, Diamond Bank (Nig) Ltd and the Abia State government. During the Abacha regime, the World Bank pulled out of the project for two reasons: (a) to protest the prevailing political situation (b) to comply with the so-called federal government policy against fresh foreign loans.

The Abia State government had a 10-point agreement with Diamond Bank Nig Ltd to facilitate the realisation of the project. Among the responsibilities are the task of project preparation, its concept, definition, financial appraisal, project implementation, cost recovery, monitoring, co-ordination of project funds etc.
Obuaku City was a profit-generating project as shown by the balance sheet covered by the next report.

How would Obuaku City help Igbo People, is this another white elephant?

A new city in Igboland is not a white elephant, it is the route to the resolution of the Igbo problem. Since 1945, Igbo people have come under increasing pressure throughout Nigeria. Every year, tales of woe are told as assets, which took a lifetime to build are burnt, looted and destroyed in riots after riots. The survivors return to Igboland in tears only to go back to the same hostile places. They build up again and again their assets are destroyed. Only a psychopath will continue in this cycle of madness. But, there is no point in urging our people to divest and return home if there is nothing for them. The time has come to seek a radical solution to the Igbo problem. At Obuaku City, the enabling environment will be provided for our people to return and invest. Among the facilities to be provided at Obuaku City is an Ultra Modern International Market, an Industrial estate, rail and road links to international and local airports, bonded warehouses, rail and road links to !
seaports and harbour etc. There will be financial, newspaper, academic districts, conference and entertainment centres etc. Anyone who feels threatened anywhere should be welcome at Obuaku City-The Land of Opportunities.

What can I do about Obuaku City?

This is a year of action. If we are serious about protecting Ndiigbo from the impact of Sharia and OPC-related violence, then we must act in support of the Obuaku City project. Right now, work on the Obuaku City project is stalled because of the withdrawal of the World Bank and the inability of the local bank to continue to fund the project alone. At the time of the World Bank withdrawal, there was a so-called federal government policy against fresh foreign loans. Today Abacha is gone and the policy on foreign loans is reversed. The contractors and the Diamond Bank (Nig) Ltd are interested in continuing with the Obuaku City project. Many Igbo businessmen and women who invested this project are disappointed and frustrated at the delay of the project.

The Obuaku City project is one of immense importance to the Igbo race because it may provide the long-sought answer to the problem of resettling Igbo refugees freeing from ethnic and religious persecution in an increasingly unstable Nigeria. The Igbo diaspora should wade into the issue by helping the Abia state government to re-start the project by all means necessary. The entire south-eastern governors should consider taking over Obuaku City as a Pan-Igbo Project. The possibility of introducing an Igbo national service for all graduates of educational institutions in Igboland should be considered. Their direct labour could be used to build Obuaku City. Remember, the colonials built the entire railway system in Igboland by direct labour. Today, millions of able-bodied Igbo youths roam the streets idle while there are pressing public work projects crying to be done. Direct labour, that is how those beautiful underground systems in New York, Berlin, London, Moscow etc were !
built.

Those Igbo with the right connections should suggest ways of re-establishing the World Bank’s involvement in the Obuaku City project. Afterall, the Igboman has been forced to participate in paying Nigeria’s over $40billion foreign debt, which he did not borrow. So if Ndiigbo have to raise a loan from the World Bank for the Obuaku City project, so be it.