… Says Little Time Left, Promises Better Deal
By Jude Atupulazi
The People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Anambra State, has bemoaned what it describes as the poor infrastructural condition of the Awka Capital Territory and its toll on economic and social wellbeing of inhabitants, noting that with a few weeks remaining for Soludo to clock two years in office, he has no excuse for not giving the state capital a befitting facelift.
Speaking at a dinner hosted in his honour at Utopia Suites, Enugu, by a group of small business owners of Anambra origin, the Chairman of PDP, Anambra State, Chief Chigozie Igwe, said, ‘Soludo will be two years in office on March 14, 2024, which is a few weeks away, meaning that he would be completing half of his tenure soon.
Yet there is no discernible footprint of development in Awka which harbours the seat of power. While other parts of the state have not fared better, Awka remains the worst state capital in Nigeria with worsening infrastructural decay, dwindling economic outlook and increased hardship for the middle and low income earners.’
He wondered why the APGA government preferred to churn out policies which, he said, were not thought through as they ended up injuring the people more.
‘Today, you cannot rent a two-bedroom flat in Awka at any cost below half a million Naira and a three bedroom flat in the town costs from a million Naira and above. How many civil servants, small business owners or low income earners can afford this? Why is the situation like that?
The government has a defective housing policy where it has ignored the need for mass low income housing scheme, preferring a sole option of aligning with private estate developers who merely apportion and sell undeveloped land which fail to close the gap on housing deficit, partly due to government’s inability to provide critical infrastructure, especially connecting roads to those estates.
‘Even the few roads built by Soludo around Awka are so narrow and unbefitting of a capital city with anticipation for growth and expansion. Recently we saw the case of traders, mostly women, who in the bid to save their families from the economic crunch caused by bad governance, found themselves plying their trades by the roadsides of Awka, probably because they could not afford the excruciating cost of renting shops in the capital city.
But the Soludo government felt that they were defacing the aesthetics of the capital and all it could do was to uproot and destroy their wares. It shows how insensitive the government has become,’ the PDP helmsman posited.
He wondered why Soludo did not think of a policy to relocate the economically challenged citizens rather than turning them to destitutes by destroying their sources of livelihood.
Igwe maintained that the economic activities in Awka had been badly affected by what he described as Soludo’s bad policies and added that a combination of the governor’s policy, curtailing traditional celebrations and activities like funerals, together with cult induced insecurity in Awka, which, he said, the governor had ignored to tackle, had killed the weekend economy in the state capital, resulting in capital flight and relocation of several small businesses from Awka.
Noting that such had visibly reduced the state capital to a ghost town, Igwe cited the value chain of operators in the printing, hospitality and entertainment industries, together with their ancillary businesses as the most hit by the governor’s ban, which, he said, limited the printing of posters among others and together with insecurity, the number of visitors that used to troop into the state capital every weekend for funerals and other weekend activities was drastically reduced.
Igwe, scoring Soludo low on performance, said, ‘This is not the time for noise making but a critical time to observe governance and propagate constructive engagements to instigate better performance from the government in the interest of the masses.
But I think Soludo is heading to failure. He has missed the opportunity to ameliorate the hunger and hardship imposed on the suffering masses by the inept governance of successive APGA regimes.’
Igwe assured that the PDP was ready to provide a credible alternative to the residents of Awka and the people of Anambra.
‘Very soon the electioneering window will open and PDP will come to the rescue. We will unfold our manifestos and plans to make Ndi Anambra laugh again. There is something about PDP’s Antecedents of good governance, exemplified by successive PDP Governments in Delta, Enugu, Akwa Ibom and others.
Even Soludo as CBN Governor under a PDP government did so well. He propounded the Dubai-Taiwan agenda as a PDP governorship candidate but when he took the idea to APGA, a very small party without strong antecedents, the ideas failed to germinate,’ Igwe said.
