Gov Umahi is committed to making Ebonyi most attractive investment destination in Nigeria – Barr. Orji

Ebonyi State governor Eng David Nweze Umahi has continued to make impressive marks in the areas of infrastructural, education, human capital and rural development. In this interview, Ebonyi State Commissioner for Information and State Orientation Barr. Uchenna Orji gives more insights into the developmental strides of Governor Umahi and his current strides toward making Ebonyi investment destination in Nigeria. Excepts

Honorable Commissioner sir, it is an established fact that Ebonyi State is been transformed courtesy of the developmental strides of His Excellency, Governor Dave Umahi. With the meager resources at the disposal of the state, how is the  governor able to achieve so much in Ebonyi ?

Let me say that His Excellency, Governor David Umahi is governed by inspiration from God. He is a man of character and content. He is a man of sound mind, whose moral and mental character is something that should be emulated. When he came on board, he decided to identify five critical sectors which include building infrastructure, health, education, human capital development and of course, agriculture and security. He deployed his ingenuity, passion and fear of God in making these five key areas a reality.

So, the issue of prudence, accountability and probity are his watchwords. He looked at the road infrastructure in all the 13 local government areas and he gave each local government area not less than 25-kilometre road construction, which has been completed in the concrete pavement of eight inches of 50 years guarantee.

This has made him the first governor in the history of governance in Nigeria to do road construction by concrete pavement. All the urban roads leading to the satellite towns and metropolis he also did, making it about 1,500-kilometre road done as state roads within the period of five years. He did not only stop at doing state roads, but he also did federal roads.

So, if you are coming from Enugu to Ebonyi or from Abia to Ebonyi or from Cross River to Ebonyi or even from Benue to Ebonyi, you will be sure that you will meet with a smooth road done in some cases concrete or asphalt. Added to this, he is dualizing the major roads to reduce accidents, lessen traffic and attract investors.

He is also doing 13 flyovers, making Ebonyi State the next on the state with the highest number of flyovers, after Abuja and Lagos. This is one of the things that he has done, I can mention several others. But let me say that the secret of his performance is that of prudence and passion for good governance.

Today, we take pride as the state with the biggest shopping mall in Africa, having not less than 6,000 modern shops. The former senator who represented Bayelsa East, Senator Ben Bruce came to visit Ebonyi State and said he has never seen any mall as big as this in the whole of Africa.

Today, we also take pride as the state with the biggest Ecumenical Centre, which is like a centre for social and Christian events. We also take pride as the state with the biggest light tunnel, which is like the face of Ebonyi State. People who came to Ebonyi upon seeing it were wondering if they are outside the country.

That is a deliberate concept by the governor to tell the whole world that something good can come out of Nazareth, in this case, Ebonyi State Within this four-way light tunnel that is the biggest in Africa, we also have under it Africa’s biggest water fountain. This is in addition to his principle of urban renewal which makes it possible for us to have street lights in virtually all the streets. These streets lights are working 12 hours non-stop from 6 pm to 6 am in every local government in the state, a minimum of 25 kilometres.

One of the projects of the Gov. is the airport.  Do you think that the project will be economically viable upon completion?

As a matter of fact, viability here is as a result of feasibility study. It also depends on the vision of the person that is establishing a project. Our vision is to make Ebonyi State International Airport to be one of the three best in Nigeria ; to be a center of excellence for every form of air business. We are thinking of making it a credible alternative to Lagos and Abuja international Airports, So that people all over the world will have a chance of landing in Ebonyi State. We have got the security and we have got the environment, we got people of honor and integrity, we have got road infrastructure and facilities that will keep the leisure of every investor that will come to Ebonyi State.

But what is more important is that the facility we are raising is going to be a second to none. It can only be compared with that of Lagos and Abuja. And given its nearness to some of the key states within the South -South and South East, we are pretty sure it is going to be a place to land, when you compare it to other airports in Nigeria. But more critical is the fact that we have got so many facilities, including business facilities, shopping mall which is the biggest in Africa, we have got international market which is housing our market men and women. We have got agricultural facilities, including the Rice Milling plants, Rice business, including the fertilizer blending company. All of these things will attract investments. And through our air business, we can be sure of exporting our Agric commodities and that will add impetus to the revenue generation of the state. We have done our feasibilities and we have our vision and we know where we are going. Our idea is that through the air business we can create jobs , create wealth for our people and our lands can appreciate because there will be investments.  We can also attract industrialization because industrialization is not all about government but also a doing of the private sector. But environment must be created for them to have confidence to invest in the state. That is what the governor has done. So with all of this things put together, it would make for economic development in the state. And that really captures the vision of the governor to bequeath Ebonyi State an emerging economy that will be the hub of South East by the time he bows out of office in 2023. And God willing, he is going to bow out gloriously.

How much has the governor achieved in the health sector?

That is another area in which the governor has performed well. Today, we are proud to be a state with the biggest College of Medicine in Africa. This edifice is going to be like medical tourism for the entire Nigeria where people can get excellent treatment for heart diseases, cancer and kidney transplant. With this, the era of patients going to India and other foreign countries will be a thing of the past.

This college has a dialysis centre and it will be the only centre for dialysis in Africa. Of course, the secondary health care facilities including the general hospitals are also functioning in the optimal capacity as the governor made sure they are well furnished. I can mention a lot of what the governor has done and the reason for all these achievements is because of his accountability and the fact that he has the fear of God.

What is the governor doing to improve the education system in the state?

Fantastic. The governor believes that you cannot talk about human capital development without talking about education. To him, education is very fundamental, we call it catch them young. What did he do? He introduced a lot of policies. One is what we call free and compulsory education for out of school children. So he has a policy of arresting anybody seen in the streets, giving that person counseling and giving the person free and compulsory education up to secondary school, that he has done, that has increased school enrolment in Ebonyi State. That has reduced drastically the scourge or menace of street hawking and idleness that has reduced insecurity   and criminality in the state.

The governor also looks at quality education and quantity of facilities. Today we pride with the state with the best class room block located in each of the 171 wards.  He injected N7 billion for the funding of BESDA. BESDA is this issue of out of school children.  He ensured the creation of vocational colleges to catch the technicians, the artisans in the street and bring them to school, a non-formal school and give them trainings in two years and four years and give them certificate so that they can receive empowerment from government, from donor agencies, federal government and financial institutions. Again the governor has to establish what is called King David Gifted School. It is a special school. It means, school for the gifted children. Now every local government will have to get the best five children and that is of course a very thorough and intensive examination and these children will be given scholarship from secondary school to university and they are not going to be part of the normal school curriculum and normal school calendar. Their teachers will not be NLC teachers, they will be contract teachers, so that there would be no distraction, that school is going on now and we are harvesting the best brain, future governors, future ministers and future presidents from this school. The school is open to everybody even non indigenes.

Under governor Umahi, Ebonyi  that was educationally less privileged, we now had to delist Ebonyi State in that list. Under governor Umahi, somebody from Ebonyi State, according to NUC education index, came first as the best JAMB student in Medicine and surgery in the whole of Nigeria. Under governor Umahi, a local government in Ebonyi came first among the 774 Local government areas in terms of number of students that gained admission in 2017. These are indications that something is happening in the education sector. The governor also introduced a lot of programmes including inter house sports, debate competition, there is one he told me to develop of recent, take a trip, a kind of academic completion and l am developing it. This is aimed at occupying the brains and minds of our people in academics and that has really helped and then the issue ICT and all of that, the governor has done fantastically well.

Governor Umahi was the first governor in the history of this current administration to reduce the school fees of students in any state university in Nigeria by 30%. Today, Ebonyi State University students pay the lowest among the state universities in the federation. The governor is giving subvention to universities and other tertiary institutions in the state.

What are some of these impacts?

There is high school enrolment; there is a reduction in insecurity; the school index of Ebonyi has also increased. Under Governor Umahi, out of the 774 local government areas in Nigeria, the NUC said a local government in Ebonyi was among the highest that gained admission in 2017. When they did an index assessment on the best medical students that gained admission in the same year under review, a JAMB candidate from Ebonyi was the best in Nigeria in terms of score. Of recent, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) did an analysis of states in the South-East in terms of empowerment and employment ratio, Ebonyi state came second. That goes to show the impact of what we are doing in the state.

Insecurity is one of the major challenges in the country today, how is the governor tackling crimes such as kidnapping and other crimes especially the relationship between herdsmen and farmers?

The real issue that happens in Ebonyi is communal clashes, arising from the consciousness of the rural dwellers on the issue of land ownership. This in turn is based on the development they are seeing and the emphasis we are laying on agriculture. However, the clashes are being resolved by the state government. In the IGP’s crime record, Ebonyi State is at the bottom.

There is a very low case of kidnapping in the state and the reason for this is that the state has fortified its security architecture. We are a smart citystate. We have a programme that is called Smart City Programme where CCTV is deployed in the major junctions of the state. Anywhere you commit a crime; you will be seen and apprehended.

In addition to this, we have a civilian security outfit, which we called Neighbourhood Watch with over 4,000 members recruited by the state government. They were given training by conventional security. Today, they are greatly helping in policing our security in liaison with conventional security. The governor really motivated the security officers.

We have about six security agencies in Ebonyi State. Each of these agencies, except one, participated in the empowerment programmes of Ebonyi State where we shortlisted wives of security officials and gave them N200,000 each. One interesting thing is that 80 per cent of these beneficiaries are non–indigenes. This will enable them to go into agricultural programmes in order to complement the efforts of their husbands who are always in the field. The government also went to every barracks in the state and did a comprehensive rehabilitation so that our security men can live in a conducive atmosphere and motivate them.

There are also forest guards who go to the forest to see that there are no bandits there. On the issue of herdsmen, I can tell you that in the country today, Ebonyi is one of the states that have a minimal case of the herders-farmers clash as it were. The state government did constitute a very strong committee at the local government and state government levels. The committee is headed by the Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General with members drawn from the security agencies. They regularly meet and interface with the herdsmen and farmers in order to ensure that there is no conflict.

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