₦airaland Forum

OreMI22:
The one-size-fits-all copy-and-paste approach to everything is what makes some analyses faulty. You or someone with a similar name argued something similar that Anambra airport would not be viable since it was so close to Asaba. In fact suggested that since Abakaliki airport was more than 100KM from Enugu airport, it was a more viable airport. The problem with such an analysis is that you based them on just one line of thinking "distance between them" and not the even more important factor which is the population and economic activities in the area to support even 3 airports. There is a very popular saying that has held for ages "If you build it, they will come!"

Agulu Lake Hotel was not a waste. If you like to provide free Keke to every location for the guests, it does not take away that it is located a little far away from any major city center. It is a resort and serves a certain niche for people to just go there and relax. That is why the effort should be around creating unique fun activities around the hotel such as boating, water parks, etc, to create its eco-system and drive tourism to the hotel and location. Not thinking about unsustainable ways to waste money hiring free buses or the guests to attend nightclubs in Awka and back to compensate for not being located in Awka.

Now all the hotels you see springing up in Asaba are largely due to Onitsha having so many economic activities but very very few hotels. Therefore, hotel investors rightly reasoned that building in Asaba would still put whoever needs to have a transaction in Onitsha within a reasonable distance. The hotels in Awka will not just grow the Awka economy, but will also tap into this good hotels deficit in Onitsha that is currently solely enjoyed by Asaba at the moment. Someone mentioned that Awka needs 3 five-star hotels and he is right! The truth is that there are many hotels in Awka but not so standard. They are mainly nosy nightclubs at night and are mainly used as brothels for hookup girls. I know this first-hand because is visit Awka regularly and stay in many hotels in the city. Apart from the BON hotel and about 2 or 3 more, we don't have any decent places to stay with a family in Awka. Many Awka hotels with big buildings are filthy, with roaches in the rooms, dirty-over used towels, and not even basic wifi! I am glad that Parktonian and Geo Gold are gradually improving their standards and even now offer basic services such as wifi for their guests. If you have never been to other cities even within Nigeria such as even Owerri hotels, you will not understand this deficiency because most people in our locale view a hotel as some type of eatery or nightclub. Not a place for high-quality lodging to attract decent tourists to the city.

I am glad that Soludo has a mindset that is different from the typical local governors. Who only think about how to compete with the next local enterprise. Soludo seems fixated on the future and how to establish what will make Awka attractive to global tourists and not something that is just a little better than existing local hotels based on "Awka" standards. That is truly something I have not seen in many Nigerian governors who compete among themselves in mediocrity. I see Soludo's vision as the equivalence of the vision of Obasanjo in 1976 when he declared that Nigeria would build a brand new Federal Capital Territory in Abuja that would be a modern city comparable to similar capital cities in Europe and America. The good thing was that he meant it. Otherwise, all Abuja roads would have been designed like Lagos roads of single carriage roads at the time, and houses would be allowed so close to the roads just like in Lagos. Of course, Soludo does not have the funds to achieve all he says. But Like Rwandan President Paul Kagame who knew in 1995 that Rwanda didn't have the money to build a modern capital city in Kigali. But it could achieve greatness eventually if it begins ensuring that every new road has walkways and trees planted in the road median etc. Every major hotel built by the government was designed to attain the best global standards. Even when people criticized him at that time for aiming "too high". Today we have seen the new Kigali city emerge even though Rwanda had no oil or any tangible resources to fund its emergence quickly. But just ensuring that every new project was done in the best global standard would eventually get you there. I have written a long response. But it takes such long responses to make the very fine point that it takes a visionary leader with a modern mindset and not just the available resources as the most critical ingredient in developing a society into a world-class society. From America to Japan to China to Singapore to Malaysia to Rwanda to Dubai etc, it took just one visionary at a point in their history to decide that they had to leapfrog into a modern society regardless of their income at the time. They had the idea and gradually followed their plan until it happened. That is what I am hoping that Soludo will be for Anambra and Southeast Nigeria.

In summary, we have to think higher than our current environmental situation if we hope to become better and achieve a greater future that we will no longer be called "Third World" or something less than the best. We have to aim to be in the league of the best. We can do it. So let's support those leaders who dare to dream big even when the resources seem not to be immediately available.