“Alex Otti is quite well grounded on the ancient Chinese beliefs that prioritizes the provision of roads as an important first steps towards creating real economic growth and prosperity”
By Odo Ijere
One of the ancient Chinese precepts taught us that if you want to create wealth, first build road. The road will become the pathway through which wealth will travel and locate you.This philosophy had been well tested in China and has been among the prescient secrets driving unstoppable wealth among the Mongolian dragon race.
China just recently launched a $10 Billion dollars worth sea dragon-like bridge spanning 45kms and breaking the records as the longest bridge link across the sea on planet earth. This massive monster edifice was built just to connect communities in a region not accessible by road. China is also today building a so called Silk Express linking its Western region to Turkey in Eastern Europe to span over 2,500 kms and is expected to cost over $50 Billion dollars at completion in a bid to link Europe by road, an Expressway joining Europe to Asia.That is how important the Chinese take roads infrastructure.
China has the highest networks of roads infrastructure of any country on earth even including the United States of America. The Chinese are aiming at achieving the feat as the wealthiest nation on earth by the year 2030 and their number one strategy of achieving this feat is by building on the ancient Chinese tenets prioritizing roads construction by accelerating access to more and more communities through massive roads infrastructure.
There’s therefore no gainsaying that as the Chinese economic policy makers are connecting more and more of their communities through massive roads networks, their GDP continues to grow functionally on a geometric progression. Does that teach us something about our own neglect of the importance of roads infrastructure? And its correlation with poverty and stagnancy?
Dr. Alex Otti is quite well grounded on this ancient Chinese beliefs that prioritizes the provision of roads as an important first steps towards creating real economic growth and prosperity. Dr Alex Otti, a topnotch renowned economist and financial guru knows the correlation linking wealth creation and roads access in every economy and so is tapping his good knowledge of the applied economic principles already well established by the Chinese and other developed economies.
His strategy to begin the Abia rescue operation with massive roads networks is a policy that is expected to make his job much easier. There will be no long waiting to begin to feel the economic impacts of the massive roads networks across the state attendant upon the concomitant economic boom.
Dr. Alex Otti’s philosophy to drive development through massive roads rehabilitation and reconstruction is a clear departure from the past administrations that operated without any known philosophy and objective principles of good governance.
These past administrations operated as rogue states where the only objectives were to receive monies on behalf of the state and loot. The rogue state era which saw Abians being mocked, pitied and celebrated among the poorest and misgoverned peoples of Nigeria has given way to a state driven with focus by a philosopher developer who cannot afford to look back until the mission to rescue the state from poverty and thralldom is accomplished.
The strategy to accomplish this mission is very simple to the philosophically driven and developed mind. The synthesis which tends towards accomplishing the set goals is what has transformed today into daily flagging-off of reconstruction exercises of strategic roads access across the state by the Governor.
The 30kms Ozu Abam to Ndi Okereke to Amuvi in Arochukwu, 11.5 Kms from Nunya to Eluama to Isiukwuato, 15.5 kms from Item to Akaeze in Ebonyi state are all gateways access projects that will open commerce and trading routes across Abia North geographical zone. When these roads are completed in year’s time, the ease of doing business across Abia North and by extension entire Abia state would have been achieved very significantly.
Any investment made to ease access across Abia North will have multiplier effects in the larger Abia economy. Access routes towards the oil rich Akwa ibom for instance will create economic boom along Ikot Ekpene to Ohafia and Arochukwu axis on the one hand and along Ikot Ekpene towards Ikwuano to Umuahia on the other hand. The traffic coming from Calabar and Uyo intersecting at Ikot Ekpene will have the option to pass through Amuvi in Arochukwu to Ohafia and to Ebonyi on their way to Enugu, Abakaliki and Abuja. What else could we be asking for?
The roads from Item in Bende LG towards Akaeze in Ebonyi state will connect Abia North to the vast agri-economic zone of Ebonyi state and open up our agricultural potential to access the vast rice fields and salt deposits of Ebonyi and provide the key to agric revolution that will in turn lift the people from poverty. Also the road linking Nunya to Isiukwuato is another important gateway towards the Enugu Portharcourt Expressway.
We need more of these important roads access under the strategic roads initiative of Governor Alex Otti. The same efforts should be made to prioritize the Umuahia Ikot Ekpene road with a view to reconstructing it to meet our boundary with Akwa ibom state at Ariam Usaka. This will again open economic corridors along Ikwuano Ariam Usaka ancestral economic trade routes. Our root crops research institutes and Michael Okpara Federal University will be transformed into a citadel of destination.
We cannot wait to start commissioning of these ongoing roads access projects crisscrossing our vital economic geographic locations in the state. These developmental footsteps will no doubt lift the state and its people out of poverty and begin our collective march towards prosperity.
Let us be thanking God that Alex Otti is sticking to his rules of engagement during the campaigns by making good his campaign promises which has so far seen him not derailing from his manifesto and promises to touch every community in the state with construction equipment. His bold steps are etching on the sand of times while his N400 Billion infrastructure development funds captured in the 2024 budget is surely speaking very loudly for Abia people.
Dr. Engr Odo Ijere writes from Ohafia (Okpotemba of Ohafia)
