Let your love for the masses never turn you hatred for the leaders; for both the led and the leaders are in need of God’s salvation. Truth is not when we keep toeing a particular line of thought that satisfies one group to the discomfort of another. Fairness invites us to be sincere with facts even when those facts contradict popular opinion. While people will always want journalists to crucify government, the ethics of this profession places truth above all else and puts every practitioner under the oath of fairness. Journalists overwhelmingly take side with the masses most of the time because our government habitually misbehaves. In an environment where government is only learning to be good, the tendency is to reduce journalism to poverty commentary. In the spirit of my profession I beg my fans to disagree with the views from the streets in this piece because some days are like that.
A wise man according to one school of thought is he who knows few things about many things and not he who knows much about few things. If this school is faulty then Chief Martin Elechi led-administration in Ebonyi has much to worry because this is the wisdom behind the platform. The present government of Ebonyi State cannot be criticized for doing less but for doing much. If people are worried, it is because so many projects are going on simultaneously raising fears that meager federal allocation coming into the state will not give chance for them to be completed. Views from the streets praise Gov Elechi for laudable projects he has always conceived but are worried by the snail pace speed of virtually all the on-going projects.
For better for worst, the physical landscape of Ebonyi is changing. Government uncompleted projects are littered everywhere, indications that government is confronting important historical issues of under development to instill sense of pride in people who have gone through the horror of neglect and under development. But with this stampede approach, critics of the government believe that at the end of the administration, there will be many abandoned projects. I too sometimes entertain such fears because there are some projects which owing to their long-term gestation and sheer scope and quality needed for their execution, will not mature before the tenure expiration even when you bring all the money on earth to Ebonyi. Take for instance; the water reticulation project, the development of university campus and the proposed airport development are not cosmetics projects.
This notwithstanding, Gov. Elechi’s government has always been on top of skeptics. While the government has welcomed these fears, it is confident that it is not biting more than it can chew after all a good government must not complete all its projects. While continuity is the wisdom behind progress of developed nations on earth, Nigerian experience discourages it because of inflation of contracts that has rather become a norm in Nigeria politics.
After five years, contrary to general opinion, the present regime in Ebonyi parades a performance sheet that is worth peeping at. Road construction should have been a good area to begin because of sad experience we have had here. However, government said the collapse of some roads it constructed is normal. It is rather attributable to over-loading of vehicles more than bad work of contractors as Gov Elechi argued during the presentation of 2013 budget and appropriation bill. Despite Ebonyi experience where we have seen contractors use wheel barrows and shovels to lay asphalts and coal tars, government has managed to put some roads into use no matter how rough. Gradually, it is arresting the protracted dualization of Onuebonyi-Ishieke axis of Enugu-Ogoja road awarded to two contractors. Ebonyi has a lot of challenges when it comes to road
But road cannot be a litmus test for administration that has eyes on everything possible. In water provision, the Oferekpe Water Scheme has been completed after 5 years while the water scheme at Ukawu is said to have suffered setback due to over-flooding of the work site. And save for Agba and Egu-Uhuo bridges which require special forensic test to confirm the accuracy of the work done on the bridge foundations, 34 out of 36 Unity Bridges have been completed and put to use. We have staff development centre built to international standard. And in an area of information, the state has built a gigantic radio and television station, Salt TV/FM. In agriculture, work has been completed in three out of Four Rice Processing Mills in the state while feasibility study on reactivation, expansion and modernization of Nkaliki Hatchery is said to have been completed and work will soon start.
We have international market project which would have been completed by November last year save for the sabotage of contractors. In cement development, after disappointing finding in Ishieke, another core drillings are going on simultaneously at different parts of the Ishielu and Ikwo while another drilling for coal is going on in Afikpo. In education, government can proudly boost of 30 functional boarding schools. In health, all general hospitals in the state are receiving face lift in addition to money being poured into Mission Hospitals. There is also the Mother and Child Care Initiative (MCCI) which has reduced the plight of women in Ebonyi and 17 other states through the VVF. And in electricity generation, government has experimented with Chinese company on hydro-electric power and finally settled for and acquired two gas turbines with minimum capacity of 10 megawatts of electricity to supply energy to the New Secretariat in Ochudo City and the New International Market and University. Government has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with an American company for the generation of 2000 megawatts of electric power to be evacuated into the national grid.
Yes, Ebonyi is working. We have international market, we have international university, we have international capital city nicknamed ‘Ochudo-city’; we have water schemes and rice mills built to international tastes. And now? Feasibility study is on going for international cargo airport and international poultry. Drastic measures taken to actualize these dreams by the state is a matter of another day.
Amazingly, the visit of the National Good Governance Tour Team led by Chief Labaran Maku frightened government more than the people. We know that the team would be marveled by the projects they would see, more so when it didn’t expect much from the Nazareth of Abakaliki. At a time, we expected government to beat its chest and say ‘nothing dey happen’ it adopted face-saving preparations, filling up potholes that had remained death-traps at strategic roundabouts within the metropolis as sweeping and painting followed. If Labaran is the only password to repair our roads and keep Abakaliki clean, most of us we say ‘come again Labaran’.
