Intergenerational road network in Anambra State

Sir: How the Anambrarians are delighted to witness the dynamics and rapid game change in terms of infrastructure is better gauged from street to college conversations and at newspaper vendor stands.

They are stories and conversations about a network of tardy and Dubai-London type of roads that will outlive this generation. The indigenes in the streets and market places have kept comparing Governor Charles Soludo’s road tech as equal to Ngige’s if not better.

The people are now voicing out their hearty appreciation of the Soludo’s envisioned livable and prosperous homeland, which among many indices is captured by the state’s current regenerative high tech road networks. They also, in comparison, see the ‘product’ in governance as the result of resilience, excellence, and critical thinking in deployment of the Public, public-private Community Partnership (PPCP).

The sprouting of roads in every nook and cranny of the state is attributable but not limited to the initiative of the governor to involve individuals and communities in development projects. This has yielded fruits in many sectors including the massive road multiplication and replication in urban and rural areas. He himself was in the lead of these individual efforts before he became governor.

Before he became governor, he had built a 4.5-kilometre road in his community, Isuofia in Aguata Local Government Area. That philanthropic spirit has galvanised and rekindled him to involve wealthy individual collaborators in governance in this period of global economic dawn turn. The fruit of this initiative is multiplying with the commissioning of 11km of newly constructed roads in Abatete, courtesy of the community’s private sector initiative. The roads built by “illustrious sons” of Abatete, demonstrated the potential of Public Private Community Partnerships in infrastructural development.

PPCP is working and adding democratic and governance dividends, hence, the partnership is spreading in many communities. Apart from the governor’s initiative and Abatete model, there are cases of such initiatives in Neni, Awgbu, Umueri and so on. Added to the motley of high-tech roads built by the government, the governor has entered into an era of commissioning rendition and paparazzi from one local government area to another.

This includes commissioning of a 500-meter road built in Umueri, Anambra East Local Government Area by Chief Josephat Onwualor, which is another evidence of the efficacy of private-public partnership in driving community development. This is replicated in Awgbu, Orumba North Local Government where Chief Alloysus Okoyenta built about 400 meters road in his community, thus, emphasising that fixing the state requires the people and communities in consonance with the vision of making the state a livable and prosperous homeland. This is because even the “entire 2024 budget will not be enough to fix all the roads within a single local government when about 98 per cent of the state’s resources are in private hands, while the government controls only two per cent.”

Prof. Maduabuchi Dukor is of the Department of Philosophy, UNIZIK.
The governor’s broader vision for road construction across Anambra is approximately 88 per cent achieved in Aguleri, Nzam, Onitsha, Awka, Okpoko, Nnewi, Ekwulobia Umunze and Ihala areas. The urban development in these flagship towns have opened up roads to tens of communities in different local councils and hinterlands. These include roads from Nzam to Anaku and to the border towns with Enugu State, from Umunze to Ogbunka and Ufuma and from Onitsha to Ogbalu neighbour communities. Awka and Ihala road networks are positively impacting on the nearby communities and local councils.

The trend is enviable and inexorable. With the vision of at least 1,000 Anambrarians constructing at least two kilometers of roads each, 2,000 kilometers of roads will be constructed before the end of the first four years thereby boosting infrastructural development in the state. There is no doubt that Soludo’s model of Public Private Community Partnership is working courtesy of prudent tax administration and sustainable populist fiscal policies of the government. Today, a staggering 344 kilometers of roads, with the construction of flyovers, have been awarded and officially initiated. These roads are streaming, capturing peoples’ attention and commendation. This is even as the government targets 250 kilometers before the end of 2024.

Road construction, rehabilitation, erosion control are equally fortified by drainage systems against environmental challenges. There is, therefore, an urban regeneration via an ambitious intergenerational network pivotal to the setting up of the Anambra Urban Regeneration Council (AURC) in October 2022, a vanguard against the encroachment of ‘chaotic slums’ within our urban landscapes. The canvas of urban regeneration is already taking shape in Okpoko, Awka, Onitsha, Nnewi, and Ekwulobia landscapes.

This has necessitated a strategic demolition of dilapidated structures, creating drainages and channels to ventilate floods as well as pedestrian walkways and cycling routes to ease traffics. To add to the aesthetics and beautification, tree planting and street gardens as well as the establishment of bus stop laybys, street markings, the installation of benches, waste bins, and various amenities are now part of the overall scenery enveloping the state.

The Anambra State Government has addressed misinformation and fabricated story circulating online concerning the Moore Street -Iweka Road project at Ochanja in Onitsha. “The Moore Street -Iweka Road project is neither finished nor commissioned by Soludo. He has only commissioned the Port Harcourt Road and Niger Street Road in Onitsha South Local Council, both of which constitute environmental challenges.”

The administration of Soludo is driven by the vision of a prosperous and livable homeland hinged on the pillars of security, law and order, infrastructure and economic rejuvenation, human capital development, governance reforms, and the fostering of a sustainable environment. An intergenerational road network is an integral component of the whole art and architecture of sustainable development and a livable homeland.

Prof. Maduabuchi Dukor is of the Department of Philosophy, UNIZIK.