₦airaland Forum

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Factory Road industrial estate

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Thanks Chinenye

Chinenye and Ezeuche, I have screen shots from google map. How do I paste them ? Thanks

Aba has taken a lot of flak lately because of the negative news that dwarfed any other news coming from the city. The kidnapping episode late last year seemed to subdue the erstwhile indomitable and can do spirit of Enyimba people.I was surprised that one person (Osisikankwu) and his marauding gang could pocket the roughnecks in Aba.

Aba has also suffered immeasurable neglect from the knucklehead governor (KG) resulting in monumental decay of infrastructure. KG once lamented that only 20% of the 600+ manufacturing outfit in Aba were paying taxes to the state government.

People on this forum have also made very disparaging, ignorant and careless statements about Aba without realizing that you don’t kick a man whilst he is down.

I have to put Aba into perspective as a true Abian. Let me make it clear that Igbo land is my domain and I won’t sit by and watch unwarranted attacks on Umuahia (especially), Owerri, Aba, Enugu, Onitsha, Awka, Afikpo, Nnewi  and other cities in my domain, more so when the flaks are coming from Ndi Igbo ibe m.

Aba was well planned and only requires a facelift in terms of road repairs, drainage and sanitation, which would be provided by a committed governor. The aerial view of Aba can bear testimony to this.

Aba was estimated to have more than 870000 residents as at 2006 census. This figure would be significantly higher if you include the greater/metropolitan Aba area. This population is made up of artisans, corporate workers, factory, workers, traders and their families. It is a hands-on city and everywhere is like a market.

The city is known as an industrial and commercial city.

According to UNIDO. “The Aba shoe and leather goods cluster is composed of seven zones. Each zone is specialized in certain product line such as ladies sandals, mules, men’s closed shoes and sandals,boots, leather goods such as bags and travel goods. It is estimated that the total number of entrepreneurs in all the zones is 55,371. Average number of people employed is about 4.3persons/entrepreneur making it totally to 240,000 people in the whole cluster. Average number of dependants per entrepreneur is 7.8 and this means that 1.87 million people are depending their livelihood on Aba shoe and leather goods community. Approximate combined production of footwear and leather goods is 75,000 pieces/day” http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/import/32799_BergRep1a.pdf

This market is locally known as Bakassi and traders from other West African countries flock to that market to buy their products.

I have also bought shoes from there and sold in Cameroon and it was good business. I used to go by air to Douala from PH, paid a lot of money to greedy PH and DLA airport officials and still made nice profits.

That market helped to keep me independent while spending big when I was at school and I still had enough money to embark of West African tour just before my NYSC. The volume of trade going on in that market is huge, but KH doesn’t realise that he wont be getting more than 20% tax return as long as his back is turned on Aba.

Other notable markets in Aba are Ariara International, Cemetery Road, Ngwa Road, electronics market in Pounds Road (everywhere is market in Aba)

Industrial Layouts

There are several industries scattered within the city but there are also well-defined industrial layouts, which are heavily subscribed. As you approach Aba from Umuahia direction, you will not fail to notice various factories/industries to the left and right of the express road. This trend continues until you start heading into town. The state government says that there are more than 600 small to large-scale industries registered in Aba. This excludes industries employing few people.

The industrial layouts are:

Factory Road Industrial layout (here you will find factories like Nigeria Breweries, PZ Plc, Unilever, KSI plc, NBC aka Coke etc) This layout is fully subscribed by big hitters.

Ogbor Hill Industrial L/out (the likes of International Glass Industry PLC, Aba Textile PLC, International Equitable Association PLC,
Glassforce PLC (largest bottle, test tubes and laboratory glassware in Nigeria), 7UP bottling co etc.

Osisoma Industrial L/out (NNPC depot, TONIMAS lubricants, Choice paints, De Smet Refineries, Plant Oil and Chemical Industries Ltd, Theo & Theo paints, Ceeplast Resin and Plastic Industries, Oil Crusher and refineries and many others.

There are several other big timers scattered all over town like Star Paper Mills, ANCOS steel (fabricators of steel and machineries including trailers, tankers and industrial reservoirs),Slok Vegitable Oil.

Accordingly, Aba integrated power project by Geometric power is developing substations in the 4 industrial belts in Aba. Shell is already supplying gas through their pipeline to industries in Aba.

The problem with Aba is neglect and lack of vision by governor. You may say anything about Aba, but you can’t deny that it is in the top 4 most industrialised cities in Nigeria. Top 4 most commercial city in Nigeria. Foremost cottage/small cluster industry city in Nigeria.

ABA, the pride of Abia, Umuahia the bride of Abia.

Snapshots of the industrial area below.

A short drive towards Mission Hill - town centre from the outskirts (express.)

Ezeagu, could you embed this for me ? Got no clue how to embed. I tried but it didn't work thanks.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=775IfP-6JR4&NR=1

http://www.abianeedsthis.com/

Ezeagu, hapu ya ka o na akwa onwe ya emu. Kama ma I choro ka gi na ya na agba gburu gburu n'ala. A hula m ka o na esi ekwu okwu ebea ka onye na enweghi echiche. Mu na ndi echiche aturu enweghi mmeko.

chino11:
^^^^ See the 2006 census result before start frustrating yourself.


http://www.nigeriamasterweb.com/Nigeria06CensusFigs.html



Abia state is the least in population in the southeast.

Anambra is more populated than Abia state, but Umuahia is more populated than Awka. As at 2006 Awka had about 301000 people while Umuahia had about 362000. Verify this claim here:

http://www.population.gov.ng/images/stories/Vol%2003%20Table%20DSx%20LGAPop%20by%20SDistrict-PDF.pdf.

Awka has done well to get to where it is today but Umuahia is more commercial and industrial than Awka and has always been. In terms of planning, Umuahia is very organised and our roads are straight and broad with good drainage and our houses are in line. Our topography is nice as well if you like it nice, serene and hilly.

Although palmoil trade/export is no longer as vibrants as it used to be when the likes of John Holt, UAC and Leverbrothers walked the lands of Umuahia, we still have a market which caters for whole sale of oil in drums.

Among the industries you will find in Umuahia are Breweries, Ceramics, plastic, oil mill and refining.

Schools include University of Agric Umudike, Forestry Reseach Institute, school of nursing and midwifery. Ofcourse 1929 Government college Umuahia which produced the legendary Chinua Achebe, Saro Wiwa, JOJ Okezie etc.

There are various residential estates including world bank estate, Afara Layout, Aguiyi Ironsi Layout etc and they are all of good quality in terms of design and planning.

The legendary Ojukwu bunker and national war museum are also in Umuahia.

A ma m na ihe gbasara iko onu na isa akwa gi na ezi na masi gi, mana enweghi udiri efe ahu.

Now sell Awka to me if you can.

chino11:
Umuahia?? On express axis toward umuahia there to show that its a state capital. I think it is more like a mere glorified local council or provincial district.

You don't know what you are talking about Umuahia. The Umuahia on the express is the out skirts and it is better planned and bigger than Awka and you can confirm the population from 2006 census figures. You talk very carelessly and I wonder if you have actually been outside your cocoon.

Onlytruth:
From the google shots, it shows that the city is WELL PLANNED. All it needs now is fixing the roads and the buildings, it'll just transform into a beautiful city. Abia state can do this. Just throw Orji and his team out next year.

The truth is that Mbakwe did a very good job with Umuahia,Owerri and Aba. Those three cities are well planned with straight and wide roads. Our buildings are mostly in line and you don't find houses facing east,west, north and south on the same street.There is extensive underground drainage system in Owerri and something of lesser scale in Umuahia. Next to Abuja, there is no other place in Nigeria as orderly and well planned as Owerri.(maybe we should all start posting pictures of our cities) We don't do flooding in those two cities and we don't do narrow and winding roads either.

De Sam was on Aba's case before the military struck. What Aba needs is a facelift (road repairs and declogging of the drainage). The outline is already in place and it's a shame that our silly governor does not realise that Aba is Abia's cash cow.

Cameroon is in central Africa and is a member of Central Africa economic area. There has to be a cut off point somewhere and Cameroon happens to be that line. However, a portion of Cameroon (Bakassi) is in W.A.

Cameroon is quite peaceful as well because you hardly get any ethnic riots and it's quite safe to travel at night. However, the people in South west Cameroon ( English speaking) feel very discriminated by their French speaking country men. I have travelled from Ekok - Emujok - Mamfe - Yaounde and the road in the SW could only be compared to the ones I travelled in Liberia soon after the war.

Also, the people are in constant fear of Biya as you cannot discuss him freely in public including taxis.

Your power supply is quite stable as well. I was in a hotel in Tiko and the window was shattered during a thunder storm and there was power cut, but power was restored as soon as the storm calmed and they were able to carry out repairs. Now, that was impressive, especially after being in Atlanta during a thunder storm and having to order pizza as there was no electric to cook for half a day.

You also have loads/variety of food and I got the impression that the average meal was like a feast (maybe the class of people I stay with in Cameroon) as a meal always comprised of at least two dishes. Some of your foods are quite similar to SE Nigeria (Calabar area) foods like Afan/Eru and E/kpankoko and roast plantain and fish (bole ?)

Water supply is also steady (at least in places I stayed in Douala, Tiko and Yaounde) and you pay by the meter.

I have strong links in Cameroon and I enjoy my visits to Cameroon, but I have watched Cameroon go down over the years (no thanks to Biya). I hope someone rescues you from him before there is a break in law and order.

OK, maybe I'm a bit naive, but I have been trying to figure out any pointer to northern agenda in the article but I keep missing it.

So tell me, are they going to exclude southern farmers and southern banks from participating ?

Ringim was a monumental failure in Abia state as the AIG. Abia state degenerated into a lawless and kidnapping fiefdom under his watch and Jonathan still made him the IGP even as his incompetence was on display for all to see.

Jonathan can huff and puff all he wants but Ringim's failure rests squarely on his shoulders. I wonder why people set themselves up to fail.

Desola:
Posted by: johnie

You sure about that? Half education is worse than none, you do realise that?


Education was clearly a waste on you if at all you had any.

deflect - turn from a straight course, fixed direction, or line of interest
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/deflect

Definition of DEFLECT
transitive verb
: to turn aside especially from a straight course or fixed direction
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deflect

Definition of DEFECT
1a : an imperfection that impairs worth or utility : shortcoming <the grave defects in our foreign policy> b : an imperfection (as a vacancy or an unlike atom) in a crystal lattice
2[Latin defectus] : a lack of something necessary for completeness, adequacy, or perfection : deficiency <a hearing defect>
See defect defined for English-language learners »
See defect defined for kids

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/defect?show=0&t=1307998886

Sorry, but you don't deflect from one party, organisation or association to the other; what you do is defection to other groups/parties. However you could deflect from an original position or deflect other positions. "Deflect" was used wrongly by the original user and defect is more correct in that context.

oyb:
and guess who resides on the ground floor

UBA

Ground floor (back entrance) was a restaurant back in the days (10 yrs ago). That woman food na waya, it provided beta' option to Mr Biggs and Tantalizers down the road in those days. I hope say them never drive that woman comot.

Ibime:
From D-Line up to Chiba is all new buildings, showing how PH has spread north into Ikwerre lands, and don't be surprised if PH expands to reach Aba one day. In my childhood, even Elelenwo was considered outskirts until the building of oil mill market, now PH has extended through to Elele, Choba, Oyigbo etc. In my fathers day, PH did not extend past D-Line. Our family house in D-Line was virgin bush when it was purchased in the 50s, so I guess Rumuola, Rumuomasi, Artillery and the rest were still villages then.

Yeah, back in the days, Elelenwo used to be outskirts and there was a clear gap between there and Obigbo. From the other side, Rumuokwuta was towards the out skirts and  not many years ago FGC PH ( near MCC) was also in the outskirts and Igwurita was clearly not in PH. Even Choba was on its own.

Has it expanded to Elele these days ? Last time I knew, it was pushing towards Omagwa. You are right, one day, only the Imo River bridge would be able to define the boundary between metropolitan PH and Aba, afterall they are only 60km apart; center to center and less than 30 km apart outskirts to outskirts with some small towns filling in the gaps.

I also think that the original town must have started from "Town" i.e Aggrrey Road side and areas around there like Mile 1 Diobu judging from the types of buildings around there. My mum used to stay in Churchill Street with her uncle b4 the war, but he lost all his properties in Churchill after the war but he bounced back.

I used to rock PH badly when I was in school (sec and Uni) and my sec school hols always ended with spending 3 days in PH and boarding a reserved train to KD.

There was a cement factory in Okpella along Okene - Agbor Road. The factory was owned by Bendel state. I wonder if that factory still operates or if this new factory is a resuscitation of the old one. Either way, I hope they deliver quickly and come up with reasonable price for cement to enable poor people build their own homes.

lacidi:
Old boy, please don't spoil the Igbo language. If you do not know what Ikiri means you should just say so and not fabricate a response. Ikiri is not a slang!

Ikiri is the Igbo name for the small animal with big eyes popularly called 'Bush baby'. The animal is renowned for its ability to hold on to whatever it grips. Usually it stays on trees and grips the tree branches so tight that even when it is shot dead, it still holds on to the branch and the hunter will have to manually extricate the grip before it can detach the animal from the branch. The most difficult part is that if you catch Ikiri in a trap, it will grip the trap and you may be forced to cut off its fingers in order to detach it from the trap. That is why in Igbo we say "onya ji Ikiri, Ikiri ji kwa onya".

So Ohakim called himself Ikiri in order to show that he has a grip on the Govt house and only at death or by his own choice will he detach from it.

Bros take am easy, I be proper Owerri guy. What you said is not far from what I said "
Fox or a guileful person. "no dey shake when pushed", "back no dey touch ground" "Strong man".

You just defined the xters of Ikiri and called it bush baby, but I called it a fox for lack of word for the animal. Now in practical terms, when ikiri is applied to a human, it becomes a slang which refers to a strong man or guileful person depending on who is using it and when .

bababuff:
I beg my Igbo brethren, what is the meaning of 'Ikiri" in english?

Fox or a guileful person. "no dey shake when pushed", "back no dey touch ground" "Strong man"

It's an Owerri slang mainly reserved for a dubious persons.

@ Topic, we don't need completely free education in Imo state. What we need is affordable education as people are already going to school without much persuasion in Imo. Rochas should channel most of our money to capital projects and resuscitation of our moribund industries in Imo.

HTML5:
All of you at talking about what you don't know.

Have you ever asked yourselves how Biafra fell?

Ibibios (Efiks are Ibibios) did not support Biafra from day one, but some greedy elements like Barr. Udoaffia, and Phillip Effiong gave Ojukwu the impression that hIs cause was supported by the Ibibios.

After the lost of Port Harcourt, Onitsha, and Enugu to the Nigerian armies, the Biafran rebels became strong and even stonger within.

The only way the Nigerian army could penetrate their strongholds was to break in via Sub-marines, and without the co-operation of the Ibibios, Oron and Calabar wouldn't have fallen into the hands of Nigerian amries which forced Ojukwu to run to Ivory Coast.
Hunger was also the most vital weapon used against the rebels.

Go and check accurate memiors.

In your own thinking, Enugu , Nsukka etc also fell because the Igbo people there cooperated with the Nigerian forces. Laffing at Nigeria using submarines to penetrate Oron and Calabar.

Calabar fell as a result of tactical error, less hardware and the support Gowon received from Ahidjo, which Biafra did not envisage.

As per Ibibio people, all I can say is that many of them stood side by side in the trenches with their Biafran counterparts, giving as much as they were getting and even more.

Ndi Igbo have shouldered the consequences of the war alone and survival instincts made their natural allies to keep their distance. The Ibibios have intermingled with and married Ndi Igbo from God knows when. My grand dad married an Ibibio woman as far back as 1917 and her own parents also lived in Umuahia within the same period.

My Uncle was in Calabar sector when Calabar fell. He was a 2nd Lt in Biafran army and his section covered retreating Biafran forces. One of their last stand points was at SPC Calabar, where De Martin stood fighting for more than three days before pulling out. He had nothing negative to say about his Ibibio colleagues.

Your assertions about PH do not deserve any response.

Even with the 35% levy, I can make a nice killing selling at N750/bag retail or N600/bag wholesale. They know what to do to crash the price of cement; just deregulate the market and approve outstanding license applications without making demands for huge bribes and a lot of us will play and partake in this bonanza. Affordable housing for all should take priority over protecting the business interests of a few people.

blink182:
You don't seem to be in debt, a family friend of ours is in a N300m naira debt, after importing bagging equipments, the good for nothing whoever refused him license. Dangote is a rogue, cement can be sold in this country for very little when it is imported. If producing doesn't favour dangote, then he should turn his factories into bagging plants

That's what you get when market is semi-deregulated and skewed in favour of a few bodies, leading to near monopoly. Dangote and co are not going to do less than 700% profit margin as long as all the players are comfortable with their slices and patches of the market. I also think that they are involved in price fixing as well and the prices are not going to come down as a result of competition but maybe as "goodwill" gesture from the players or by executive fiat.

Take fuel importation as another example where import licenses are held by a select few with govt subsidy to back them up, why wont they be wealthy beyond imaginations ?

How about the GSM companies that recouped their investments within 3 years by providing services. If you invest billions, you are expected to make operational profits every year, but to recoup your billions including capital expenditure within 3 years is taking the mick.

Sometimes, govt needs to protect consumers by weighing in on excessive pricing of commodities, expecially when such pricing are reflected on your profits.

I once made arrangements to bring cement into the country, but had to back track due to exclusivity of licenses and the cost. I still have my contacts and I can land a bag of good portland cement to PH at a cost of N350. Add extra N50/ bag to take care of transport and logistics from PH + and another N100 forrelevant duties, 

I am confident that in a truely free market economy, that I will make a killing by selling at N800/bag unless already established titans are ready to go to a price war with me in which case, they would only win by dipping below N550. The level of protection without regulation offered to a few entities in Nigeria, has encouraged hyper inflation indused by over prising e.g cement and telecoms.

Totally deregulate the cement industry or apply stringent control and stiff penalties. This is why I think that govt should have rival  non-subsidised profit oriented bodies in key sectors to provide stiff challenges to companies with a tendency to monopolise the market.

ndu_chucks:
I agree with you once again. I also believe that we need a law in Nigeria which will mandate Primary school education and provide jail terms for parents who do not send their children to school. Those who want their children to become Almajiris should provide after school training for them. The archaic culture of enslaving millions of youths and rendering them a menace to the society, in the name of senseless implementation of an aspect of religion, must be eradicated from our mist.

I wonder why we don't have Almajiris roaming the streets of Saudi Arabia, Quatar, or even Indonesia, in great numbers (millions). Note that, the children of the Sultan of Sokoto, IBB, Atiku, Ciroma, Yerima, and other so-called leaders of the North will never be found in the streets of Nigeria roaming around as Almajiris.

I agree that education should be made compulsory up to sec school level, but it should also be free in order to enforce it, and there should be punitive consequences for defaulting parents/guardians. In addition to being free, school dinners should also be provided for the means challenged; this will encourage "beg for food" children to look forward to school.

You see, some people feel that government should not get very involved with the funding of education, because they believe in capitalism and the private sector. I also believe in capitalism and private sector but I disagree with this view point because govt is the only body with the financial muscle to fund education and govt is the ultimate beneficiary of a good education system in the form of taxes we will reap from this investment i.e people who benefitted from good education, less social miscreants (like almajiri and area boys) to worry about etc.

Those people fail to understand that the capitalist western govts they want to emulate provided the original infrastructure like dams, rail roads, airports, telecoms, schools, hospitals etc before selling them off to people who took them to the next level. The level of our infrastructural development demands active involvement of the government as well as the private sector to take us to the next level. I once made the observation below and I stand by it.

I would definitely propose more funding from the government, but I also realise that the task has gone beyond normal allocation from the budget as the funds aren't just there. Therefore, I would propose two sources of funds for the sector bearing in mind who the beneficiaries of education are; companies/employers, Nigerians and employees.

1. Education development tax (employee): For a start, this would be 0.5% tax on income 15K - 30K (N75 - N150). 1% on income N30001 - N70K and 2% on N70001 and above. (that's a revenue of at least N30 billion p/a assuming that 20 million people were at work and earned btw 15 and 30K)

2. Corporate Education development tax: 2% tax on profit of all corporate bodies.

The money from both sources would be lodged in a special account and would be used for funding infrastructural development in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. Govt should also continue to increase allocation to the sector as if the the funds did not exist. The harsh reality is that we need an enormous amount in the education sector and there is no way we can rely on budget allocation alone to remedy the situation.

In addition to the above, universities should be given a level of independence to source funds and I am sure they would be able to secure corporate funding for some chairs and research activities in schools.

ndu_chucks:
FACE, mai gida, I was going to comment on this topic until I read your post. I wholeheartedly agree with your analysis.

Having said that, we cannot forget that literally millions of kids are wasting away without primary education, much more secondary, particularly from Northern Nigeria. We hope the Feds and the states' ministries of education with a combined budget of over $5.7billion per year, will do something tangible about the problem in the next 4 years.

Hey, yaya dei ? We really need to invest more agressively in education (at least basic). What would work for northern Nigeria in my opinion is more small sized schools and more qualified teachers to run them.

Let me explain; a state like Imo might require 30 large schools to satisfy their needs, while a state like Niger would require not less than 200 small schools to meet their needs because Niger state is at least 15 times larger than Imo state. That is the disadvantage of your large land mass in the north unfortunately. This means that it would cost considerably more in the north to deliver the same spread and quality of schools as you have in the south.

However, if not for the kleptomania across the nation, there would have been a different outlook by now. E.g, less than $1.5B of the $5.7 B you mentioned will make it to their intended target.

The NCEE is for entrance into unity schools (FGCs+ Kings College and FGGCs + Queens College) which are less than 80 in number out of more than 12000 Sec schools nationwide. Various states have their own entrance exams/admission criteria into their own school in addition to the private schools. There are also Command Sec Schools, Navy Schools + AFMS and NMS and they conduct their own entrance exams, so why would the writer expect 10 millions applications to < 0.7% of available schools ?

The writer's analysis is flawed on many counts.

1. Not everyone is interested in going to unity schools.

2. Majority of those in unity schools need to travel a considerable distance from home in order to attend a unity school (I attended a unity school so I know)and not everyone is interested in travelling a considerable distance to attend school when the local secondary school is near the corner and when there is a state school that rocks for them.

3. Gone are the days when unity schools flew the highest flags as there are now many private and church schools giving the a good run for their money.

4. There are more than 12000 secondary schools in Nigeria and if people show the same level of interest in all the schools as they do to unity schools, it means that more than nine million people are showing interest in secondary schools.

Put another way, unity schools represent less than 0.7% of total sec schools in Nigeria but attract  more than 1.3% (at 5 million/year which is more reasonable than the the 10M postulated by the writer which implies that he expects at least 60M Nigerians in Sec Sch and at least another 60M in Primary school) of potential secondary school students, which is already more than their fair share of attraction.

People should take time and cross check their analysis before they go to town with them.

PhysicsMHD:
@ the part in bold, where are you getting these numbers? And like I said, the article was talking about percentages and in terms of the percentage of revenue that was internally generated, Lagos and Sokoto do lead the way. If the heading was really all that misleading, somebody (like me) who read the article would have pointed it out. Jigawa is noted as one of the states with a relatively high IGR in that same article, yet everybody knows Jigawa is a poor state and cannot really have a large IGR in terms of total amount. There was no confusion about the article or the heading - it talked about percentages all throughout, and nobody questioned why Jigawa came before Delta because it was clear (and the OP even bolded some parts) that it was about percentages.

Anyway, another thing to consider is whether other states have other sources of income/funding that those states could use to develop their state so as to obtain a higher IGR. I think Rivers falls into that category of states, while Sokoto does not.

Where are these limestone factories in Nigeria outside of the North?

I got the figures from the chart posted in the fisrt page and the figures do correspond with the article. Internal revenue is very different from percentage of internal revenue in relation to total revenue accruing to the state.

I take it that as the article you are also referring to the % of internal revenue of a state to the total revenue (IGR + revenue from federation account) of that state.

Rivers state has very high IGR and fed allocation, but the fed allocation is higher than the IGR by a long shot (not their fault that they are sitting on all that gold). Sokoto has 34B while Rivers has 71B IGR, which means that Rivers generates more money internally than Sokoto and Rivers has a higher % of total IGR by federating units. As an entity, Sokoto's IGR as a % of their total revenue is second to Lagos.

The heading says: Nigeria: Igr (internally Generated Revenue) - Lagos, Sokoto Lead The Way. This is false especially as the data quoted clearly says that Rivers has 71B IGR while Sokoto has 34B IGR. A better heading would be : Relative to total revenue accruing to each state, Lagos and Sokoto lead the way in IGR.

edoyad:
Sokoto cement is actually a private company. It used to be owned by the FG before it was privatised by OBJ. Most cement companies in Nigeria are private.

OK, but do these private people pay royalty to FG or state gov for the natural resources ? I know that the aluminum smelting coy in Inyishi - Imo is/was owned by Imo state and Nigercem by Imo-Anambra (East Central State). Did they just corner all the money form the limestone and aluminum or did they pay royalty + tax to FG ?

PhysicsMHD:
The comparisons made in the article seem to have been about the percentage of total revenue that was internally generated, in which case, Sokoto would beat Rivers.

Which means that the heading is wrong. Rivers' IGR is far greater than Sokoto's IGR.
3 out of 5 is 60% while 40 out 80 is 50%, doesn't mean that 3 > 40 in real figures. That is not to take any thing away from Sokoto which has done well. Abia did well as well with fourth highest IGR at over 21B even with poor tax collection. With proper tax/accountability, Rivers, KD, Kano, Lagos, Anambra, Delta and Abia being the major commercial and industrial areas in the country will explode at the back pockets.

Now, someone mentioned the cement factory owned by Sokoto and the fact that they are taking advantage of the limestone deposits there. There are other cement factories in Nigeria using local limestones. The question is; does it mean that the specific minerals that the FG owns are coal, oil and gas ? Do these companies/states pay royalties to FG for tapping limestone, bauxite, aluminum etc ? If they don't, how is limestone for example different from oil/gas/coal ? Why are states not allowed to tap into oil/gas/coal but allowed to tap other resources ?