As Governor Charles Soludo sets for the next four years in office, Anambra State Commissioner for Works, Engr Ifeanyi Okeoma speaks with OKEY MADUFORO on the Vision 2070 masterplan

Soludo has presented his 2026 Appropriation Bill with 79 per cent for Capital Expenditure. What does that portend?

Yes, 2026 which is the coming year. We expect to fast track our infrastructural development towards making Anambra State a livable, prosperous homeland and a destination hub in the country and outside the country.

We are laying a lot of emphasis on continuing the belt ways and that is massive road dualization and we want to connect Anambra State together using dual carriageways which we are doing from Amawbia to Ekwulobia to Uga which will finish by the end of this year and from Nwagu – Agulu to Ozubulu and we shall complete it by next year.

We are doing the road from Nnobi to Ekwulobia and from Ekwulobia to Ufuna junction. Also, from Ufuma junction to Umunze and that would be completed by the grace of God by next year.

We might have to dualize from 33 in Onitsha through Nkwellezunaka to Aguleri junction and with that, we intend to connect Anambra Mixed Industrial City to Awka . It is going to be a virgin road and we intend to develop the Anambra Mixed Industrial City and we shall lay a lot of emphasis on that.

No person that resides in Anambra will have any need to go out of Anambra State for whatever reason because we are deliberate about what we are doing.

Before now, all they do is to go to Lagos, Abuja or Port Harcourt searching for greener pastures but this would be no more at the end of the day.

By the time we finish with Anambra Mixed Industrial City (AMIC), that would be an employment hub and people would be gainfully employed in the state. That means that no pressure would move people out of Anambra state.

Apart from the industrial cities, Awka 2.0 is intended to start a new city in Awka and we also have the Greater Niger City which is around the Obosi area and we intend to lay a lot of emphasis on infrastructural development.

People are of the view that all these projects are yet to survive the rainy seasons, how confident are you?

Yes, interestingly a lot of people have made these comments but this is our third going to the fort year since we commenced road construction and actually, we have not had any incident of collapsed road projects.

But at Amawbia to Agulu we have a major challenge and not only the issue of swamp but we found out during the dry season that we looked at it and we saw a lot of clay soil especially between the stretch up to Jezco fuel station and up to the Police Divisional Headquarters and we also saw a lot of clay soil and we removed those clay soil and filled back with fresh soil but for us and any person that is into road construction.

We know that it is an Engineering challenge and we had to do a lot of pigments and when the rains came during the year we discovered that the water was coming out and asked the contractor to open up and when that was done , we saw that the clay which was actually on that area was preventing the aquifer which is source of water on the ground from coming up and the clay is stopping the water from coming up and it made that place swampee and we never knew that that was the case.

Again, when you do soil tests on the road you have a limit to where you can get to but this is about 1. 8 meters but we had to remove up to two meters and no person does up to 2 meters.

But with the way we opened up, we saw that the clay was preventing the water and we now saw water coming up like a tap along the line.

This is what we are doing now and the good thing is that we have a good and experienced contractor and we had to create a fresh drain because the initial divert and we cannot use water bed and water is descending on the road and the other area is higher and it means that we use a filter bed on the side of the road and we cannot take the water to that side of the road that is high because the pressure of the water will be more and we decided to do a filter bed.

It is a challenge that is very rare in road construction and I was there today to look at what it is and take a personal assessment and give instructions on how to checkmate it.

The water would be discharged at the covert and we are equal to the task. We have a contractor that has a major consulting firm that is supervising the project and this contractor has done multi billion-naira projects at Abuja and other difficult places so we are lucky to have them on the project.

Erosion control in Ekwulobia has been on and one would like to know what is happening there?

That is one of the major jobs that we have done and I can tell you that we are in full control of the erosion. Any person that lives in Ekwulobia will tell you that the fly over is not the problem but that the major problem is the Umuchiana Ekwulobia gully erosion.

The problem we have is that most Aguata areas do not have flood discharge points and because of the amount of flood that comes there it degrades the soil and cause erosion and if you look at that Umuchiana gully erosion, you would discover that the water comes from as far as Igbo – Ukwu from Isuofia.

We did what we call flood control and now took all that water collected; the volume of water and discharged them into that area and we did a major erosion control work and put up the embankment which has started heeling themselves.

But we hope that within the we can take it to a river close by and this is the major work that we are doing. You need a Governor like Prof Charles Soludo to do that and we intend to arrest all the erosion areas such as Nanka and others but we do not have the resources to do all of that.

We are looking at limited resources available to us to check the incidents of erosion in Anambra state and we shall do the best we can to arrest those cases.

What is the essence of having these three major new cities?

Let me start by saying that when you say that we are developing Anambra state, what we mean is that we want to change the narrative and make a city that Anambra people would be proud of and we are looking at the future about 200 years and how would this place be? We want to create an environment that is conducive to the future and we are working towards Vision 2070. We talked about the league of Anambra Professionals and their plans and that is the vision that we are looking at.

We are doing three major cities which are Awka 2.0 , we want to create a city that we would be proud of and you just asked me a question and we say we want to keep the ancient cities as a way of keeping and recording out history for generations yet unborn and then create new cities to accommodate the growing population in future.

We have the Greater Niger City to decongest Obosi town and other nearby towns so we want to create a new city.

How many white men live in Anambra state aside those that are here to do construction work as contractors? Now how many industries can sustain and accommodate them?

And that is why we have the project called Anambra Mixed Industrial City to accommodate all forms of nationalities. We had a meeting of the Ambassadors of G7 Nationals and they came when we started but they had to go back the same day.

Not that they want to go but where will they stay? So, in doing these new cities we are creating a livable prosperous state and in Anambra major entrepreneurs, cooperations cannot allow their Managing Directors to stay in Anambra because we do not have those facilities to host them.

We do not have a five-star hotel and the biggest hotel we have here is Bon Hotel and it cannot house them. That is why we are doing a five-star hotel that would herald the new Anambra and it is located at the International Conference and Convention Center (ICC), at Agu Awka.

So, what we are doing is to look beyond now and look at the next 200 years and that is to tell you that Anambra is on the rise.