It goes beyond rational doubts that one of the biggest
stories of Governor Willie Obianos administration in the past three years is
the Anambra Airport City project at Umueri in Anambra East Local Government
Area.
The first basic thing to note about this
landmark project is that besides the 1,500 hectares of land on which the
Airport City is designed to sit, the $2 billion project is being domiciled in
the state at no other cost to either Ndi-Anambra or the state government. A
consortium of Chinese and Nigerian firms bear the cost of constructing and managing
the facility, which, on completion, will comprise an international airport with
two runways, shopping malls, industrial and business parks, a five-star hotel
and a well appointed Chinese neighbourhood. Apart from its function, as an
international airport capable of landing any size of airplane, Umueri would
provide refueling facilities for international aircraft on transit. The
aviation fuel will be sourced from Orient Refinery, an indigenous firm in the
locality.
Umueri Airport City project runs a BOMT plan where the
financiers will Build, Operate, Manage and Transfer the project to the state in
the course of time. The airport will provide over 1,200 direct jobs and well
over 3,600 indirect jobs. Again, the Umueri community, on whose land the project
is directly domiciled, will in perpetuity receive 3% of the net profit
annually, as the project managers’ response to corporate social responsibility
international best practices.
Noted across the globe as entrepreneurial, adventurous and
resilient above their peers in any part of sub Saharan Africa, Ndi-Anambra are
most enthusiastic and anxious about the fruition of this impressive initiative.
They interpret the scheme, as the boldest measure ever taken by any government
in South East Nigeria to place the business world, with its expansive
opportunities, at their reach. For this, the people are very eager to see the
Airport City objectified within the projected thirty six months schedule.
When, therefore, some muffled voices that first found vent
in the free windows of the social media started pigeonholing the efficacy of
the airport project in enhancing the state’s economy and the citizens, one
wondered what economic rationales or political persuasions underpinned such
argument. Until Chief Osita Chidoka recently declared the airport project a
white elephant scheme, the puzzlement about the probable source of the earlier
syndicated outbursts subsisted. His claim lends a proper angle to the muffled
narrative.
Probably driven by the fancy of a fleeting moment of service as
Aviation Minister, Chidoka thought of scoring a bulls eye by picking holes in
Gov. Obiano’s airport scheme; the conclusions would then be that the oracle of
aviation has spoken, so Obiano’s airport and the people’s enthusiasm would be
consigned to linger, if not languish, perpetually in limbo.
But Chidoka might just have chosen to cut the nose simply to
satisfy a malicious urge to spite the face. His languid stint with aviation and
his fledgling political sentiments to govern Anambra State come 17th of March,
2018 cast questions on the efficacy of this critique of his.
Now that Chidoka can stake anything within his reach to
covet Chief Obiano’s seat, he has chosen to lead a childlike advocacy against a
project he should have ordinarily leveraged on to gain mileage in his electoral
stake. He simply went the way of the opposition in the state, who still find it
odd to acknowledge any good in Obianos reign. Not even Anambras most sought
after security/safety brand, the workers welfare priority schedule, the various
aspects of grassroots economic mobilisation and empowerments; not the growth in
education, the infrastructural uplift (all achieved under excruciating national
economic recession) merit any kind word from the opposition.
It would have been strange if the palpable joy Ndi-Anambra
express in the Aero City missed the attention of those wishing Obiano’s
administration poor performance, as an excuse for their exegesis on alternative
government. But Obiano would not falter in his strategic approach to
governance. His economic enablers, with security of life and property on the
lead, have continued to increase and improve private sector driven economic
activities in Anambra State so much so that the squeeze of the national
economic woe is ameliorated in the state.
The security in Anambra has made government’s economic and
other policies flourish. It is the same stability in the polity that attracted
huge private investments of over $3bn in the agricultural sector that has
brought the consortium of Elite International Investment Limited, Sinoking
Enterprises Investment Limited and Orient Petroleum Resources Limited to do the
Umueri Airport City Project. And just as Coshed Farms, Anaku; JOSAN Farms,
Ufuma; DelFarms, and Lynden Poultry Farm, both at Igbariam, operate at no
incidental costs to either the government or people of the state, the Umueri
project is by no means any kind of mortgage, as Chidoka and his co-travelers would
want to make the world believe.
The terms of engagement of these firms with the state
government encumber neither the present nor the future of their host
communities or the rest of Ndi-Anambra.
By the way, should a shallow utterance on Umueri Airport City
by someone whose desperation to drive Anambra State affairs has ensnared and
made vulnerable even in his earlier postulation that People leaving PDP are
political jobbers with no character with no principles, who have never
won any free and fair election in Anambra, constitute any perturbation to the
lofty political values of the Anambra electorate? Osita Chidoka, a United
Progressive Party proselyte today, will soon denigrate the party faster than he
just did PDP where his cake was baked beyond doubts.
By Okechukwu Anarado
By Okechukwu Anarado
