Recently, the good people of Anambra State were taken for a ride again with a clearly deceptive purported signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the development of a cargo airport in the state.
As usual and true to type with the method always adopted by ‘carry-and-go-politicians’, there was so much fanfare about the project by the Willie Obiano administration.
Given the fact that the governor disclosed that he likes to enjoy the good life and recalled how he was invited to abandon his swimming and leisure to become governor, we are at a loss whether the recent Airport gambit is another way of having a laugh at NdiAnambra.
The United Progressive Party (UPP) believes that governance is a serious project as such, unless Governor Obiano decided on the airport project as a desperate ploy to return himself to office as governor, the airport project conceived barely one year to the end of his purposeless administration should be taken for what it is: a sham.
Truth be said, the construction of an airport, whether cargo or not, requires rigorous planning, painstaking surveys, environment impact assessment of location, soil testing, terrestrial and aerial mapping and a lot of technical and professional appraisal.
One thing is clear, you cannot build an airport with $2m and a MoU is not an agreement, because MoU is a preliminary step to signing an agreement.
Most importantly, it is not possible for a state government to build an airport in Nigeria without approval from the federal government since construction of airport falls within the exclusive legislative list in the nation’s constitution, as such for Governor Obiano to hype the pipe dream of Anambra airport amounts to pulling wools over the eyes of NdiAnambra and to make up for his wastage of public goodwill in the past three years.
We in UPP are appalled that instead of showing remorseful contrition and apologizing to NdiAnambra for putting up three killer-flyovers along Enugu-Onitsha expressway at the whooping cost of N15billion, Governor Obiano should have the shameless boldness to conceive a cargo airport.
Anambra people are no longer easy to deceive with quick and sentimental project launching, especially when the government involved is the same administration that has failed to complete similar mega projects it met at different stages of completion, particularly the Five Star Hotel at Agulu.
The idea of an airport for Anambra may not be entirely bad; however it is doubtful if it ranks as priority project in a state known for its large population of enterprising citizens, where the development of a sea port, integrated business hub and industrial cluster are begging for attention.
If Obiano and his co-travelers feel no compunction for wasting as much N15b on the construction of the three giant obstructions called flyovers in Awka and failed to see the need for a workable masterplan for the development of such commercial towns as Nnewi, Ihiala, Ekwulobia, and even Awka as State capital, they have shown that the airport project is dead on arrival.
If NdiAnambra will get a modern international airport, it must be one with state of the art infrastructure, but such a project requires well thought out funding and implementation plan and not a hasty conceptualization that would end up as another source of asset depreciation and wasted funds.
In the past three years Governor Obiano and his men have shown that either they have their heads in the moon or cloud seven whenever they are thinking about what do for NdiAnambra, or that they are not prepared for the task of governing a first rate state such as Anambra.
It is for that simple reason more than his constant belligerence and emotional outbursts that NdiAnambra have served him notice to quit as our people have resolve to tell him enough is enough on November 18, 2017 when they would speak with their votes.
For us in the UPP, we see the Anambra airport conceived by Obiano as a day dream by a man high on outlandish ideas and low in responsible execution. Leadership demands clarity of vision and attention to details, qualities that are entirely lacking in the present administration in Anambra State.
*Amaku is the Anambra State Publicity Secretary of UPP.
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