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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on the Anambra State government to declare a state of emergency on infrastructure in the state capital, Awka.
The party bemoaned the poor infrastructural condition of the Awka capital and its toll on economic and social wellbeing of residents, noting that with few weeks remaining for Governor Chukwuma Soludo to clock two years in office, he would have no excuse if he fails to give the state capital what it called a befitting facelift.
Speaking at a dinner hosted in his honour by a group of small business owners in Enugu recently, the chairman of PDP, Anambra state, 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 strong footprint of the government’s developmental effort 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.
“You can’t rent a two bedroom flat in Awka at any cost below half a million naira. How many civil servants, or low income earners can afford this? The government has a defective housing policy where it has ignored the need for mass low income housing scheme preferring the option of aligning with private estate developers who sell undeveloped land which fail to close the gap on housing deficit.”
partly due to government’s inability to provide critical infrastructures 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 esthetics of the capital and all it could do was to uproot and destroy their wares. You can see how insensitive the government has been portrayed by its action. One wondered why Soludo did not think of a policy to relocate the economically challenged citizens rather than turning them to destitute by destroying their sources of livelihood.”
Igwe who maintained that the economic activities in Awka had been badly affected by the state government’s policies added, “A combination of the governor’s policy curtailing traditional celebrations and activities like funerals together with cult induced insecurity in Awka which the governor had ignored to tackle, have killed the weekend economy in the state capital resulting in capital flight and relocation of several small businesses from Awka, which in effect has visibly reduced the state capital to a ghost town.”
Igwe who scored Soludo low so far on performance especially as it concerns the Awka capital territory said, “This is not a 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 may be heading to failure because he has continued to miss opportunities to ameliorate the hunger and hardship imposed on the suffering masses by the ineptitude governance of successive APGA regimes.”
