globemoney01:

Show us Obi projects in Awka Ezi. Show us investments that opened in Awka during Obi tenure. The same Obi trader that said how will he develop Awka, how much do they generate in IGR. You are coming here to tell us nonsense

Obi built the following in Awka:

8 new buildings at Amaku Teaching Hospital
Kenneth Dike Library
Jerome Udoji Secretariat buildings
Stadium stand Fifa goal project
Women's Development Center
3 major link roads Okpuno
Abakaliki Street
Ngozika Estate
Storm drainage Arthur Eze Ave to Iyiagu

If there was any criticism of Obi it was that a lot of his road construction which he handed over to the likes of Paul B and Inter Bau was poor. However, people forget he built the entire expressway from headbridge Onitsha to Umunya with solid drainage and stone base. Despite heavy duty lorries plying it no pothole.

Meanwhile Obiano did Amawbia to Juhel junction without aligning the expressway, expanding only sections of it without service lane and with three badly designed flyovers that concentrates traffic at peak time at the underbridge.

I knew four non Anambrarians that got jobs with Obi administration. 1 was from Zamfara, 1 was from Abia, 1 was from Imo, 1 was from Taraba.

IGBOSON1:


Wouldn’t go as far as to term it a slum, but i looked at the pic effusive comments were being made about and i shook my head in exasperation! Our standards as a people and what we consider acceptable in governance have drastically diminished from colonial times! I remember reading excerpts from books and journals of colonial travellers into Igboland, and the fact they took time to document how neat, clean and organised our villages of the time were! Now look where we find ourselves today!

Fact of the matter is it wouldn’t take that much to improve on that scene: just reconstruct the road with underground drainage and sidewalks on top (the road looks wide enough for it), properly mark the road and include the necessary signages, plant trees on either side, add street lights, then include one or two open/green spaces where you can add seats, shrubs/flowers and a fountain or two! Not forgetting that we also need to imbibe the habit of sweeping our major roads at least once every fortnight!

Obosi has some nice areas but this road is not one of them. Some of the better towns in Anambra from an aesthetic angle imho are Enugwu Ukwu, Nise, Nibo, Nimo.

Ofodirinwa:


Barcelona and Paris are among the only 'planned' cities in Europe. Again, the rest grew organically. Both were planned about 200 years ago. Most cities in Europe are over 800-1000 years old. PAris was planned after a massive fire cleared the old city. London, Amsterdam, Berlin are not planned.

Some cities are planned and some are not, but it doesn't determine what the city will be quality-wise. Especially if you have bad taste, you will plan things that are bad and tasteless. We were celebrating Keke when it came, now we think it's a problem. Plastics, 'fly over', etc

Even look at IGR. Nigerians are celebrating that as a metric of government success. IF you tell them this will be a problem in 15 years, they will argue. To rate your governments success by how much money they take from you lol. When it's time to make the decision we make bad ones because we have no taste.


At the same time, we exaggerate 'how bad' the average Nigerian city is. True be told they're not that bad and are improving.

Exactly.

European cities were built before the automobile, before electricity, before telecommunications, before rail but they made an effort to modernize. The bulk of Nigerian cities were built after 1930. The old towns are less than 10% of the space. But you see the selfish, unintelligent behavior of the Nigerian authorities already at work.

A classic example is the old Enugu road that the British built with Igbo labor from Onitsha to Enugu. The British knew that it needed to be wide enough to contain vehicles so they made it a two-lane road in each direction. They left enough space for an extra lane on each side which they demarcated by planting Mango trees. Start from Zik's Mausoleum and see what happened to that road. Parts of its widths remain but a bulk has been encroached on by walls and buildings. So now the old Enugu road has gone from a two-lane road that could have been three-lanes to a two-lane road that becomes one-lane as you approach Awka or Onitsha. The setback could have even been used for utilities like street light poles, phone cables, underground drainage but no way to do that now. So much for sense and education.

This is the kind of stupid and selfish lawlessness that creates chaos and congestion in urban areas in Nigeria. You see buildings built under high tension lines. You see people selling oranges in wheelbarrows on expressways meant for high speed movement. In Lagos you see people selling tomatoes on rail tracks. Utterly ridiculous things that European authorities never tolerated. The public space is the public space and is meant to serve a purpose not to be converted to private real estate.

OreMI22:


@bolded. That is the crux of the matter!

The type of houses in Nigerian cities such as Onitsha are way better than houses in many European capitals. However, because the whole place is unplanned, with lots of bad roads and overflowing trash everywhere, no sane person would like to live in a Nigerian city.

Thus, a total lack of town planning code and appalling bad roads with overflowing trash everywhere is what turned Nigerian cities into slums. If you look at the quality of buildings, you will agree that Nigerian cities have better buildings than many European cities. Only that the European cities have paved streets, without trash all over the place and of course the buildings are better organized.

There are road codes, building codes, well known ways of doing public transport systems, waste managemement systems, there are guidelines for urban planning. Nigerian officials deliberately choose not to follow or enforce most of these. The consequence of this failure in duty is chaos, filth and congestion.

The second is a failure in investment. Onitsha, Awka, Nnewi have been growing by 10% each and every year since the 1970s. Onitsha core has over 100,000 buildings built in 40 years or roughly 2,500 buildings per year. Awka probably around 500 buildings are built every year. If you assume that the average road contains around 40 buildings and you assume that 30% of this is built on virgin land then there is a requirement for around 15 new roads per year in Onitsha and around 3 roads per year in Awka. NONE of the governors has built 1/10th of this. They will tell you that there is no money yet do the math. The average urban road of less than 1 km costs around 50 million. They cant bring out 750 million for Onitsha and 150 million for Awka roads a year? Who are they fooling? Every year the backlog of unpaved roads becomes bigger and bigger. Onitsha is supposed to have around 5000+ roads. How many are paved? Same with Awka that should have at least 1,000 roads. Less than 5% of each city is paved.

Many small African countries with less money than Anambra have far better cities and the reason is that their government officials at least attempt to follow conventional urban planning and reinvest in those cities. Nigerian government officials showcase their stupidity in doing as little as possible while boasting about themselves.

I witnessed in December Soludo with his 20 vehicle convoy of police siren and what not flying on the express. They got to Unizik junction in awka where buses have taken part of one lane of an expressway to "load", where miscreants have broken the fence separating both sides of the expressway to carry luggages from one side of the other despite there being a footbridge. A sensible governor would have seen all these and sacked the Commissioner for Transport immediately.

The same Soludo visited Eke Awka which makes the capital look like a slum and blocks a key transport artery. Where wheelbarrows have parked in front of the market seizing one lane while ATMA and other "Solution" people pretend to be directing traffic while collecting money from them. He lectured the people on keeping the place clean. How silly can you be? Someone with sense would sack whoever is in charge of ATMA and sack the Commissioner of Markets.

These people are just not serious.

ebufa:





Anambra state has an annual budget struggling to reach 200 billion naira , unless Anambra significantly increases its IGR, i do not see how the state can afford the urban renewal projects we so desire! Yet without changing the vibes of our cities we will not be able to attract local home investment talk less of foreign investment! A 100 billion naira urban renewal budget is not basic o! The basics is maintaining the infrastructure on ground, getting a handle on refuse collection and disposal, adequate traffic management , enforcement of basic city and zoning laws......and of course security.

In my humble opinion the first step to any urban renewal is to decongest our major towns..........we tend to over build our so called downtowns! The core of the inter state transport hub,should be relocated from headbridge,upper iweka ,tarzan to the second Niger bridage / obosi interchange axis........there is sufficient land to build a world class, luxury bus,commuter bus,trailer and container park there....but witout sensitizing the stakeholders the plan will be sabotaged!

The likes of London and New York City are dense but do not rely on primitive transport and business in their urban core like Indian or Nigerian cities. The technology and organization is the difference between organized countries and backward ones because those countries invest heavily in cities.

Anambra should realise that people invest in correlation to organisation. Provide a modern environment modern companies will flood the state. China gets 20x the investment of India because they are organized and modern.

ebufa:





Anambra state has an annual budget struggling to reach 200 billion naira , unless Anambra significantly increases its IGR, i do not see how the state can afford the urban renewal projects we so desire! Yet without changing the vibes of our cities we will not be able to attract local home investment talk less of foreign investment! A 100 billion naira urban renewal budget is not basic o! The basics is maintaining the infrastructure on ground, getting a handle on refuse collection and disposal, adequate traffic management , enforcement of basic city and zoning laws......and of course security.

In my humble opinion the first step to any urban renewal is to decongest our major towns..........we tend to over build our so called downtowns! The core of the inter state transport hub,should be relocated from headbridge,upper iweka ,tarzan to the second Niger bridage / obosi interchange axis........there is sufficient land to build a world class, luxury bus,commuter bus,trailer and container park there....but witout sensitizing the stakeholders the plan will be sabotaged!

The likes of London and New York City are dense but do not rely on primitive transport and business in their urban core like Indian or Nigerian cities. The technology and organization is the difference between organized countries and backward ones because those countries invest heavily in cities.

Anambra should avoid being a keke, wheelbarrow and roadside shack economy.

ebufa:




I feel you may have unknowingly touched on one critical factor that dogs all Anambra state governments.......... Revenue Generation! It is all well to criticise administrations endlessly but how does Anambra state generate enuff revenue to finance all the urban renewal projects we dream about! let me apologise ahead of time but once again I am forced to berate soludo for nearly squandering all his political goodwill by dipping his feet into the unnecessary IPOB/sit at home melodrama ! He has begin to retrace his footsteps.............................Rule #1 always stand with your people PUBLICALLY !!! Soludo must learn to flatter their dreams and aspirations like your life depends on it!

Now this brings me to the topic of revenue generation, i am always amazed that a corterie of little educated Igbo traders are able to navigate stringent,corrupt and biased town planning laws in other states like Lagos,come together,concieve,TAX,construct and commission massive trading complexes yet so called egg heads and intellectuals and elite with trappings of political and administrative powers are unable to finance project that are impactful on the general population!

As a child and an adult growing up in Lagos island within a trading family, I witnessed first hand the conception and construction of Alaba in the 1970s and Aspamda in the late 1990s...................If Soludo is desirous of making any progress with stiff necked republicans like Ndigbo he has to cultivate their TRUST and learn the 3 Cs..........COMMUNICATE, CONSULT and COLLABORATE! If he wants to generate money from ndi anambra he had better get off his high horse and start to visit every autonomous community..HOME and ABROAD...........Peter Obi was quite good at this kind of strategy............can you imagine the kind of revenue he can generate from property tax from mansions in our various villages but We go Discuss am! That one is a must!

Government has enough allocation to do the basics. Anambra is just 4,000sq km. Onitsha, Awka and Nnewi are less than 100 sq km in total. If you actually build 100 km of road in each city that will cost 100 billion or less. No state governor has dedicated just 10 billion a year in roads to the three cities each. Obiano built just the flyovers in Awka and one or two urban roads and that was it.

If you organise proper large bus services and routing and get rid of the chaos of kekes in dense urban areas that will cost you around 50 billion. You will decongest roads, make fares affordable and increase sanity and accessibility.

If you relocate markets out of major roads and enforce requirement of parking, water supply, toilets, security then you set a standard and people will not flood the state and see it as a place you can sell anyhow and anywhere without control.

Cjrane2:


I don't want to post any of the videos here to illustrate the point, so as not to be misunderstood. However, if you watch all the clips posted on that Youtube Channel (Travel and See), you will observe the clear DIFFERENCE between the chaotic and overcrowded issues we need Soludo to address in Anambra cities.

Yes, these issues are hard to raise due to trolls that will immediately attack you for suggesting any improvement to the quality of life and ambiance of Anambra cities. But, the truth is that only ABA fares worse than the Anambra cities in his city-to-city videos. Yet, Aba did have a huge improvement in most parts of the Asa road - Port Harcourt road shown in the Aba video. You could also see that they were building gutters to address the perennial flooding issues on Aba roads.

We MUST continue to advocate for the enforcement of BAN on street trading, encroachment of traders unto the roads, and parking of disused broken-down vehicles along Anambra city roads, thus blocking off half of the already narrow roads. That archaic behavior of traders MUST stop!

If you don't BAN or restrict street trading you remain primitive. No high end retail with beautifully designed shops. No comfortable restaurants. No you will perennially cater to wheelbarrows and shacks and primitive shops and that is what you will get with Onitsha and Nnewi being a prime example.

IGBOSON1:
I posted this on the Ebonyi thread and felt it would be good to repost it on other south-east state threads as well so we can have a constructive discussion on how to improve on our cities and make them world-class.

You made a few good observations about cities like Port Harcourt. State governors do not take urban planning seriously in Nigeria. Yet Cities should be top of their agenda because this is what attracts business activity and investment into a state. The business activity of a city is 100x that of a village or rural town. Take cities seriously and setup the institutions!

Obiano did a good job by creating Awka Capital Territory Development Agency (ACTDA) which for all intents and purposes was a development boards for Awka supposed to be staffed with experts in planning and infrastructure. But he did not fund it! After building flyovers, his works commissioner concentrated on Aguleri and environs. But ACTDA should be funded with 10-20 billion budget every year and be the arrowhead for everything to do with road, sanitation, building approvals, land registration, waste management, markets, transportation, vehicle permits and licensing, business licensing, taxation for Awka and environs. It should be run by professional road engineers, town planners, water engineers, waste experts and tax professionals not politicians.

ACTDA should be the precursor to establish Onitsha Urban Territory Development Agency (OUTDA) and Nnewi Urban Territory Development Agency (NUTDA) with exactly the same functions to make these cities actually act like cities and not places that harbor touts and allow lawless free-for-all chaotic street trading. Port Harcourt despite all its wealth does not have the vast wheelbarrow and street trading rubbish you see in Anambra. PH does not have an equivalent agbero infestation to Upper Iweka or Eke-Awka because they do not allow it.

Anambra state governors need to sit up and start hiring experts and not people that wear apga uniform for sensistive positions.

XerXerz:
Mktinsight aka abuzz33 the jobless frustrated tout,, you are older than Soludo and Obiano but they have become governors while you are on nairaland crying everyday. You condemned Obiano when he moved to build airport, ICC, etc, today Anambra has the best and busiest airport in Nigeria aside Abuja, Lagos and PH..No amount of frustration from you can stop the transformation going on in Anambra. You have shifted your frustration to Soludo because he is on the right track. Soludo will continue to pepper you just like Obiano did.

For 2023 you need to stop the drugs that make you hallucinate and type rubbish with the 100 different monikers you have registered on nairaland.

Grgton:
Traffic lights are not even working

Roads are not marked

What exactly are you celebrating?? Painted work of art?? Really?

Don't mind the fraudster. Soludo is right now a freaking worst governor since mbadinuju. Filth, agbero everywhere and he is painting flyover. That express they have stolen half of the fence preventing pedestrians from crossing over like cattle but he is painting flyover. At eke awka they are selling vegetable inside gutter people use to urinate and shit in but Soludo is painting flyover. Ekili.

Ofodirinwa:


Green white and green as very ugly colors. Nothing sensible can be done with them. But how unimaginative are our leaders? is the statue of liberty red white and blue? Is there a union jack on london bridge? Is the great wall of China red?

Why is it everytime they want to apply their useless, unimaginative, money siphoning projects they will now take paint and cover the thing in green white and green just to let you know it's zoological in nature. What other country does this? To have such a depressing uninspiring flag is one thing.


Nigeria is a sick place. People with talent will never be hired to use their talent. The person will go abroad, successed and the Nigerian government will be using that person to flex. Instead of to hiring the world. IGBO artists are making waves all over the world. Some of them are even from Awka. If you don't know anything about art, why commission are projects? Nwanne look at those stupid pictures in that painting. 100% of them are from the first page of Google.

Painting flyover when the traffic lights there do not work and when many roads in awka are not tarred is style without substance. Soludo should show us his new projects.

Cjrane2:


Oga Chima,

I'm glad to see some of you are finally bringing up this serious issue. I didn't want to raise this issue because I knew Anambra people themselves should use their tongue to count their teeth.

Truth be told, when I was growing up in Onitsha in the 1980s and 1990s, Abakaliki was the DUST CAPITAL of the world!
Cities like Onitsha, Awka, and Nnewi had decent roads and minimal dust. Today, the reverse is the case!

Rebuilding the internal roads in Anambra's key urban centers must be a key priority. You are right that Soludo won't even scratch the surface of the problem if he hopes to use the easy method of awarding contracts. Direct labor is the solution to reasonably solving this shameful issue. How Abakaliki managed to transform itself from the dust capital of the world to the shining modern city of today must be studied by anyone that wants to develop despite having lean resources.

Yes, Soludo could award contracts to local contractors to hire local labor to do the roads under the supervision of the governor's office.

Good points!

Anambra cities need PLANNING. Imagine if Ngige had not relocated many markets out of Onitsha. Onitsha, Nnewi particularly need to get a handle on trading. Modernize it. Put in parking, signage, conveniences, water, security, power, paving. Trading should not remain a primitive affair. Informal trading has to be restricted severely otherwise half of Nigeria will descend on Anambra state and sell in wheelbarrows, in gutters and on the street floor, in shacks along every single major road as they are doing now and turn the place into a slum.

Second is they have to get rid of keke in the three city cores (Awka, Nnewi, Onitsha). Keke are operated by lawless youths and create more problems than they solve with congestion. Cities need to move to 10-20 seater buses for transport within cities not overloaded 3-5 passenger tricycles. Let keke ply smaller towns.

Thirdly, they need to look at cities holistically. When you are building roads in a cities what are the key arteries that need to be planned, what are the carrying capacity of roads at peak (how many vehicles can it support), do commercial areas have sufficient access roads, capacity, does residential?

The Ministry of Transport, Works, Urban Development and Planning and Utilies should be coordinated by someone with expertise not the kind of people Soludo selected. 70% of Anambrarians live in cities. You need engineering expertise not politicians in ministries.

ebufa:






This video has validated the reports I was getting from folks in Onitsha and Awka, The sanitary condition in Onitsha has gone back to the days before Obiano left office( when refuse contractors went on strike)! That strike was a sytemic shock to a well oiled refuse collection system........I knew that for the system to catch up and get back on track will be an uphill struggle! Even the Obiano refuse collection system was at best delicate but it was still manageable! For soludo's system to work properly ,billions will have to be spent by anambra on compactors,bins and personel emoluments etc

The government needs to commoditize/commercialize refuse collection,disposal and recycling, if there is money in it ,then people especially the unemployed may venture into it! Onitsha is a large metropolis, Anambra state has to designate more refuse collation centers within town and dump sites for mass private participation by individuals to work...

My take is that we need to think out of the box to tackle this refuse issue!

The Soludo administration is full of incompetent people including ASWAMA.

Waste management is a MANAGEMENT issue. The state should ask first where is the waste being generated, how much waste and what types before deploying a solution. This is where simple enumeration of residential and business activity in cities is critical so that one can estimate it and price the costs of waste collection and disposal. Every single tenant of a flat or shop should pay a waste fee that aligns with waste they generate.

Once you can price costs of waste collection and disposal then people should pay for generating waste and having it collected for them.

The state needs to also pass the cost of waste to manufacturers of pure water sachets, plastic bags and plastic bottles. Anyone manufacturing drinks in plastic bottles should pay a surcharge per bottle for waste disposal.

Finally, thr state needs to do something about informal hawkers of foods, fruits, vegetables, etc. They congregate on busy roads and dump their waste and go.

Group decries activities of touts in Anambra
December 29, 2022
.Anambra
A group of traders in Anambra has expressed concern over the activities of illegal revenue collectors in different parts of Onitsha, the commercial hub of Anambra.

The group, operating under the aegis of the Concerned Anambra Traders’ Association, made the remark at a news briefing in Onitsha on Wednesday.

The group’s Chairman, Mr Gabriel Okeke, described the extortion of Onitsha traders allegedly by touts as condemnable and unacceptable.

Okeke regretted that holidaymakers and travellers passing through Onitsha and its environs were being subjected to harassment, assault and extortion on a daily basis by touts on the road.

“The touts, who have returned to the state after their sack by Gov. Charles Soludo, openly stationed themselves at some strategic areas of Onitsha.

Okeke listed the areas to include the Upper Iweka axis, Bida Road, Nkpor Junction, St. Anthony Church on the Old Road and Owerri Road.

Others are Iweka (down flyover), Ugwu Nwasike Junction, Building Material Market, Bridgehead, amongst others.

He said that the touts were operating with audacity without the fear of arrest by security agencies.

post=119468531:
My visit to Second Niger Bridge Onitsha


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfPV9EMyf7E

See the difference between Julius Berger/RCC standard engineering and sub-standard expressway and bridge built by IDC in Awka and CCC in Onitsha that lacks emergency lane, crash barrier and protection for utilities (street lights, power cables).

The best thing Soludo government can do for the state is to clean up the cities. Tar all the roads, sweep the streets, get rid of keke/okada and small shuttle. Regulate the markets. The boom in investment from diaspora and foreign investors will do the rest.

XerXerz:


[s]Night owl aka abuzz33, make this busy airport dey pepper you. You thought in your evil mind that it wouldn't come to fruition[/s]

Busy airport with 4 flights a day? You are a joker. Lagos has over 80 flights a day. Abuja 65. Port Harcourt 23.

You have nothing upstairs and are full of lies and deceit changing moniker like ashawo.

...

IGBOSON1:


As you implied, there are other revenue sources available to the state gov’t at the airport.

For starters, they could generate extra revenue by configuring the two electronic flight status boards to show advertisements as well (i noticed they were off when the latest pics were taken), and also have another bigger one outside by the car park.

If they’re not doing so already, they should be charging parking fees for cars parked in the parking lot. Charges should depend on the length of time the vehicle is parked there.

The airport can make extra money by letting out space for shops both within the terminal building and outside.

There’d be even more scope to increase revenue when the international and cargo parts of the airport commence operations.

These are important sources of revenue but strategically, they should try to get a company like Ethiopian Airlines to invest in the airport as a partner.

Ethiopian which already operates in Enugu could utilise the airport for cargo and run selected international flights to and from Anambra. For example since ET flies three times a week out of Enugu it could shift one flight a week for a start to gauge demand.

However, the Anambra State government has to do more to attract foreign investors. Awka is a mess with keke everywhere and trash on the roads. They need to clean up awka so that it would have same attraction as Enugu.

IGBOSON1:


This is what i like seeing! The airport is getting busier....just look at the sea of cars in the car park!

It's good Obiano settled for nothing but the best and the airports expansion and upgrade should continue with the present admin'! The Soludo admin' could seek private investors for a multi-level car park of say 4 or 5 levels. It would be a money spinner and could pay for itself within two years.

The main revenue for any airport in Nigeria is the passenger service charge which is N2,000 for domestic flights and $80 for international flights. With Anambra airport doing roughly 30,000 DOMESTIC takeoffs thats 60m per year. Not enough to make a dent on the huge cost of building and running the airport which cost reportedly between 40-60 BILLION. The airport has to push for international flights otherwise after 10-15 years its terminal, runway and parking lot will look like the one at Enugu which is poorly maintained because of lack of funds.

Getting International flights revenue of roughly N60,000 per passenger means that an airport doing even just 50,000 passengers per year like Enugu will gain roughly 3 BILLION in revenue to make the airport VIABLE. The MMA makes around $240 million from its 3M international passengers per year. It and Abuja are the only profitable airports in Nigeria.

Pacesetterz:
If Anambra becomes too ungovernable from now,ndi Anambra should Soludo responsible. Since he came into power it has been from one unbridled statement to another. From Ipob to other states carrying out crime in d state to Peter Obi backlash. His pple should warn him against making unguarded statement not now that the southeast is experiencing breakdown of law and order.

Soludo appointed incompetent people and this is the result. Keke boys are driving like people wey no get sense and Anambra claims to have atma and a commissioner of transport. Simple solution they no fit do. Solution to keke is simple. I would ban them first in Awka and next in Onitsha. Let people go back to using hiace bus and taxi. That should remove over 20,000 keke from the narrow roads and replace them with 5,000 buses. There will be less chaos and all those crazy boys who shouldn't be driving anything should look for something else to do.

Too much insults here. What a disgraceful piece of crap chino is.

globemoney01:


Onuku, I'm sure you watched Soludo's interview yesterday, Anambra wasted 8 years claiming to save money which is now worthless with huge deficit on roads and hospitals yet the same person is going about claiming he want to want to change Nigeria.

Obi built over 1,000km of roads many with substandard foundation. Obiano did little for 8 years except in aguleri. No maintenance, no expansion. Most roads are built to last 10-15 years. It is not surprising they are collapsing.

Rocksvibes234:
We need this kind standard of our new roads all over Anambra.. and I believe Soludu and our Contractors are working to deliver this kinda roads

One thing is standard of roads two is people using the road. They should get all the illegal traders off the roads. Force keke and buses into parks. Anambra looks like a slum.

ANSMEDIA:
Onitsha 2nd Niger bridge the new economic corridor to Onitsha the economic and financial headquarters of Eastern Nigeria. Finishing works ongoing

This is the kind of quality infrastructure needed in Anambra. Imagine if Awka and Onitsha had these kind of roads.

Rocksvibes234:
Soludo Solution
Onitsha Town will be next followed by its metropolis and other urban and semi urban areas as we no longer have rural areas except our agricultural belts ayamelum and anambra West

In Soludo we have no Political Party.
We support him with our full chest..

Six months and he is still taking pictures. SOLUDO cannot even patch the roads that are broken. Street lights fall on major roads they leave them there for weeks. They don't sweep streets anywmore. Garbage and filth everywhere. Wheelbarrows in front of markets. Its a disgrace.

Maybe Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is right about Soludo who she brought into government and who like the proverbial dog that doesnt know its master turned round and bit her:

"“Soludo is so derailed” to “commit intellectual harakiri by deliberately misquoting economic facts and maliciously turning statistics on their head to justify a hatchet job...Soludo has shamelessly pandered to so many past leaders that Nigerians are asking one more time – what position is Soludo gunning for now?...There is definitely an issue of character with Prof. Charles Soludo and his desperate search for power and relevance in Nigeria. Nigerians should therefore beware of so-called intellectuals without character and wisdom because this combination is fatal,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, 2015

https://twitter.com/Dtnsophiepresh/status/1579573949108998144

Ofodirinwa:

Take precieved glamor out of the picture and I will choose Alaba 100x over Glo. Again not only does Alaba create million and billionaires in a way that working for Glo does not, it also creates employment at an entry level at a volume the whole od corporate Nigeria cannot and has not. Again, let us not lose what we have as a people to entertain this constant need to pretend we have nothing.

I'm not again industry ( in fact I love it) or corporations but look at Anambra. Anambra has corporations and has Onitsha main and Nnewi. Which has created more wealth for people? The office or the small business? The greater bulk of Anambra's upper class was created by the trader system. This is a system that has produced real results that nobody else in Africa has. The CBD of Ontisha is main market. That's what a CBD is. A centeral district where business is done. If you want to remove that and replace it with Malawi then we are not being result based.

If you're speaking of results, the biggest corporation in the world will only create wealth for its share holders. Employees (engineers etc) will be comfortable assuming they don't lose the job, but their job will never give them wealth. our markets create real wealth for real people, even if they start as sales girls and boys.

Comparing a shop to a hut is not reasonable. I think you're more into looks than results.
The industrial volume of Aba supplies the whole of Africa and beyond with its products. I will never ignore that or decide it's primitive. If that is primitive give me more primitive

Do not forget that 100% of the viable industries in the SE either start as shops or small business and many of the viable companies in nigeria depend on Igbo merchants for distribution. Glo does not exist without Alaba and co.

Meanwhile the shops don't need the corporations.


This is a good discussion and I think both sides are valid but I'm very against the constant need to pretend we have nothing in order to say we need something more. Do you know the issue this causes? Someone will be making furniture in Orlu and the government will give a German furniture company cash grants and free land to come do the same thing in the same Orlu. We will even clap for the gov. When real development is putting your energy into what you already have.

A lot of Nigerians, especially the ones that are unproductive, take suits and desks more seriously than results because vanity and appearance matters more than achievement. It is better to impress others by pretending to be western. Meanwhile the west is scrapping all of these things

Alaba market is an electronics retail market cluster in Nigerias biggest and richest city. It has 5,000 shops and generates less than $30,000 per shop per year. Glo has 3,000 employees and generates over $1 billion a year. Glo contributes a lot more economically than Alaba whether you like it or not.

You talk about wealth and innovation it comes from corporations not one man business. China has a lot of markets and always had but what made China wealthy was their factories and their companies.

Anambra is nit going to be wealthy buying and selling but by inventing, making things and organising itself. Tonimas, Seaman, Roban Supermarkets, Albertinas, Juhel Pharmaceuticals, Innoson are reaping far more from scale than had they remained traders.

But where is the cbd to house the modern offices of these corporations? None of Anambra cities has a decent high street or central business district. Not in Onitsha, not in Awka. Instead you will see major streets littered with primitive markets, mechanics, filthy bus parks, barrow hawkers. You don't see this in Lagos, Port Harcourt or Abuja or even poor African cities. Modern streets attract investment and create modern jobs. Modern offices, retail, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels.

Ofodirinwa:


This is what I mean, no matter what igbo do what someone else is doing = better. This is a general trait with africans. You have a good thing, rather than advance it you want to drop it and grab another based on nothing but trying to exaggerate to prove a point.

So there are limits to how much I can have this discussion. For example, does the SE lack 'big business' and had big business created more wealthy and middle class ppl in Nigerian than the 10x10 shops you're insulting but don't have the discipline courage or blessing to run and maintain.

In you're own life who has created more millionaires, Glo or Alaba?

Economic complexity is not buying and selling like Alaba. Its manufacturing, engineering, sophisticated retail. GLO does 700 billion in revenue a year. They hire engineers, accountants, marketers, a wide array of professionals. Alaba is traders and sales girls and boys.

The SE has let its self down by playing to the Alaba model of economic activity. Primitive retailing. But there cannot be a high street when people are selling in barrows or in primitive 10x10 shops. It's why university graduates flee the region in droves.

Do the economic calculation of modern vs primitive. A properly designed retail outlet requires cement, paint, furniture, electricity, computers, TV, cleaners, trained staff with uniforms, signage. A wheelbarrow requires only a wheelbarrow.

You say that Anambra has nice houses in rural areas. Why didn't their owners build just basic huts with no electricity, electrical fixtures, interlocking stones, fancy gates etc. Is a house not a house?

If SE want better cities its not going to come from primitive markets as the centre of activity. It requires properly managed business districts that draw in sophisticated businesses. Look at the disgraceful state of Zik Avenue with Eke Awka, Eastern mass all turning it to agbero haven.

Ofodirinwa:


Strongly disagree with this. If we're not being hyperbolic (which we tend to be anyways), the level of development in SE Nigeria is highest in Africa across that wide an area. There are pockets that surpass it but all of those pockets are cities. You will not find anywhere in Africa where this many people are in this condition. We are not where we want to be, but we have done things that are not done anywhere else on the continent. Developing one area doesn't work. It leads to sluming and wealth disaparity. Nigeria cannot handle wealth imbalance because the rich people will inevitably take their wealth and leave as has been the case for decades.

A rich man from Osun who makes his money in Lagos will send his children to the UK. Osun will not be a part of his life plan because the development in the SW is in Lagos. Why we want that for ourselves is beyond me. Meanwhile, Igbos have loyalty to their hometown and if we lose that, we lose everything.

We have developed a model that is working but the grass will perpetually be greener in many of our brains. That is why boys are dying to sneak into Congo as we speak.

Which model is working? No South East city matches little Blantyre in Malawi nobody hears of or Gabarone in Botswana. SE cities are either civil service towns or primitive trading hovels that don't scale beyond 10x10 shops. The oyibos we like to copy don't allow everybody to trade so that big businesses get built. For us we believe small is mighty.

NwekereNdoki:


That is where you are making a mistake. We can't develop SE/Anambra by scattering development here and there.

Concentrated development gets effective results to result in the most shortest time. If everyone develops their village, it will take decades for SE to develop. That is where we get it wrong.

Don't mind them. You know how advanced a civilization is from their city. Not village mentality anambra governors take to build roads few vehicles use.

Landmack:


Bullshit

Josef Bassey prolly ran from Crossriver,a state known for its high taxation to Anambra (a home for all..including miscreants and armrobbers,a home where anybody can come and do anyhow,a home where they tell govt how to run the state).
The commissioner is too docile. Soludo should relieve her of that duty if she’s clueless.
Everyday we read on the news riders on rampage protesting. Sxx he had better handle the situation before some miscreants turn the protest to something else (exactly what they’ve been hoping for).

If Soludo has given an order for the disappearance of agberos on the streets of Anambra,I still wonder why those urchins are still on the road. Is Soludo lacking balls to finish what he’s started? Why give an executive order and have it disobeyed by miscreants?
Why give an exec order and still have those thieves boldly on the roads than ever before?


Who are those still engineering these touts to keep standing on the road?

Look at Keke/Shuttle operators giving condition to government. How weak can you be as a governor when they are giving you condition? But they see that all his pronouncements have no backbone. He told touts to get off the street, they stayed away for 2 weeks went back and nothing happened. He told street traders to stop trading on the street, they stopped for a few days, went back and nothing happened.

This is what is known as a lame duck. A dog with a broken leg. All bark. No bite.

Soludo should man up. The solution is very simple. Send vigilante people around and pick up those touts. Take them straight to the nearest police station. Jail them for three days. Every day take them out of cell, chain their legs, put uniform that says "no more touting", take them to the dirtiest gutter and let them clear out the dirt from the gutter. After the three days, get their identification and take video of them promising not to engage in touting again otherwise they will be jailed for a longer period.

For the Street traders who see the frontage of markets as shopping space. The solution is simple. Do what Obi did to them. Send Vigilantes with a truck to seize their goods. Identify who they are. After one week release their goods after they pay 5,000 naira fine with a warning. Second time offenders, seize their goods and share it to government workers. When you are done you will not see one barrow in front of Eke Awka or Ochanja.

For the Keke/Shuttle boys have a traffic management team. Keke/Shuttle's driving badly fine N1,000. Keke/Shuttle parking illegally fine N3,000. The traffic management authority should share the fines 50:50 with the state government. Every Keke/Shuttle should be registered within a local government, drivers must have a driver's license, undergo Anambra road traffic test and have their vehicles certified every year. Those driving keke/shuttle illegally without license should have their vehicles impounded and be heavily fined.