As Governor Francis Nwifuru of Ebonyi State, approaches its two-year mark in the office on May 29, 2025, Inyima Elechi Sunday, the Commissioner for Capital City and Urban Planning, passed a vote of confidence on the Governor saying his significant achievements across various sectors of the economy has projected before the international communities He advised the people of Ebonyi to continue supporting the government for further development adding the Extract was square peg in a square hole.
Sir, come May 29th, the administration of Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru will be marking two years in office. What is your rating of his administration and that of the APC government?
Well, there’s an adage in our place that the bangle you’re wearing on your hand, you need not have a mirror to look at it.
The achievements of His Excellency, Right Honorable Builder Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru, are things that dot the nooks and crannies of Ebonyi State. That is to say, they speak for themselves. Talking about it generally, I will rate His Excellency that he has performed far above average, beyond expectation.
Starting with the roads that are simultaneously going on in so many communities. That is the road that is building for the traditional rulers. Talking about the well-designed duplexes that is also building for our traditional rulers to upgrade their status.
These roads will not be serving only the traditional rulers, they will also serve the communities that those traditional rulers are in charge of. And I know that aside from these rural roads, the Ministry of Works, headed by my brother, Honorable Lebechi Mbam, has also done very, very well to do so many roads that have connected the urban cities to so many hinterlands, especially concrete roads. I may not mention them because I don’t have them off-hand, but if you go to the Ministry or walk across the length and breadth of this state, you will find out that so many concrete roads are ongoing, seriously.
And I will not here fail to mention the one that is ongoing in my local government, Ohaukwu local government. The road leading from Okwo Ngbo to Nigercem, Nkalagu is a very, very special road. Special in the sense that sometime during the administration of His Excellency Chief Martin Elechi, when unfortunately we had a little crisis within our brothers here in the local government, that road served as the only alternative for those of us here living in Ebonyi, especially within Abakaliki axis to Enugu.
And that road is also very special in the sense that Nigercem Nkalagu, is one of the topmost industries. Even though it is not functioning now, all the villages and all the communities that are situated behind the company don’t have access to any other road until now that this Umugudosha-Nigercem road has commenced. And the road is on pavement, concrete pavement.
By the time it is finished, I know that the Ohaukwu people will celebrate His Excellency very, very well for this wonderful work because even from the time of our brother, His Excellency Dr Sam Ominyi, he tried to award that road, but it was not completed. Subsequent governors came and also ventured into it.
What is the level of work on the road, sir?
Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru has taken the bull by the horns. If you go there, brand new machines are working on that road 24 hours a day. Even now that the rainy season has started, they are still working there.
Is road the only sector the governor has performed well?
Going beyond that, in the area of education, you think about the number of people who were sent abroad for scholarships. All of us were at our airport here when we sent them off to the UK and various countries in Europe. By the time these children of Ebonyi State return to this state with the wealth of knowledge they are going to acquire, I am telling you that Ebonyi will not only meet up with all the educationally advanced states in Nigeria like some Yoruba states, but we have a chance of topping them in terms of ranking in education.
Already we are topping because I heard the other day on the radio where it was announced during the news that Ebonyi came either second or thereabout in the NECO examination. That has never happened. It is a thing of joy.
We are coming up. And so, His Excellency has also done very, very well in the area of education. I may not mention it all because I am not there.
We have a commissioner who is there. Any day you meet him, he will tell you all that he has done. But these are special.
Just yesterday at the Akanu Ibiam International Conference Centre, a lot was made about so many health equipment and drugs that were brought from the health ministry to equip and take to various general hospitals that we have within the 13 local governments. It is a collaboration of the state government with the United Nations. And we are happy that such a thing is happening.
Think about the time immediately he came on board. He empowered the general hospitals. Most of our general hospitals have stopped functioning before the administration of His Excellency, Right Honourable Builder Francis Obgbonna Nwifuru.
But immediately we came on board, He bought brand new vehicles, SUVs for all of them, all the doctors of the 13 general hospitals. You can see them if you are passing along the streets.
Then, he bought those vehicles and empowered them. That was the first area where His Excellency employed workers, the 13 general hospitals. The first employment that was done in this administration was within the health sector, talking about the 13 general hospitals.
So beyond that, other areas His Excellency has been doing marvelously well. In terms of human capital development, all of you are there. His Excellency has almost gained a name among the youth as the governor of Alerts.
Because everybody is feeling his presence. It is no longer the time of only project, project, project. Sometimes the people need to feel the effect of government and governance.
They have a governor who cares. And that is why he said that he came with the People’s Charter of Needs. It is what the people desire most that he wants to do for them.
So it is a relationship governance and an open governance. So beyond that, in the area of agriculture, I know that Nkaliki Hatchery has been resuscitated after so many years of being moribund. The place is now working.
And just the other week, about two weeks ago, at Ebonyi Industrial Cluster, His Excellency launched a mega project that will bring in so many industries. Recall that in Ebonyi State, the only things you will find here are maybe hotels and maybe a quarry. That is the class of industry that we have now.
But we want to see a situation where global companies can venture into the state. And then power generation has already started doing something concerning energy and power. At Omowara, we have a station there.
At Eboni Industrial Center, he also promised that he would bring and provide the required energy to be able to power so many companies that he intended to bring into the state. I want to say that, His Excellency, if we begin to recount or see things that he has done, they are very, very enormous and much.
Sir, can we come down to your ministry, the ministry of Capital City and Urban Planning?
Talking about my ministry, we have been able to keep time with the desire of the people.
Recall that our core mandate here is to ensure that we have regulations and that people obey the regulations about the built industry. That is why we have our tax forces, we have the town planners, and we have professionals who ensure that these things are properly done. The main job we do here is for people to come any time you want to do your housing project.
You bring your building plan here after having been drawn by a qualified and certified architect. You bring it here, we assess it, we have builders here, we have town planners here, we have other engineering professionals here, like civil engineers here. Even when we don’t have them, we have a way of incorporating those professionals so that every approval that we give must take care of all these prerequisites.
People are responsible for every drawing that comes out of this office. That is our core mandate. Beyond this, as I speak now, we have, within these two years in review of this administration, signed and approved over 1,508 building plan approvals.
We have also signed some fencing permits because fencing permits and building plan approvals are two different things. You have to get permits for all these things. So we have signed over 600 fencing permits within the period in review.
And we keep monitoring as part of the core mandate of this ministry. Sometimes, we do it in conjunction with other professionals in the building industry, like the COREN, the COBURN, the Institute of Architects, and then the Institute of Town Planners, Association of Town Planners. We go together and then we ensure that people keep to the rules guiding building development.
Beyond this, our core mandate, we have also ventured into looking at the traffic situation within the town. Over the years, we find out that as the city grows in length and breadth, the population also grows with it. People coming from the hinterland want to come and maybe relocate to the town, the urban city, in search of greener pastures or maybe education.
As they come like that, then population growth, it becomes difficult for people to move, especially in the morning hours and in the evening hours when workers have closed from the office. And so we approached His Excellency, and he approved for us to install solar traffic lights in so many of the junctions that we have within the capital city. And to tell you the truth, this has eased movement for both vehicular movement and then pedestrians.
So we are happy about that because if we had left this job to only the traffic warden of the Nigerian police force here in Ebony, it would have overwhelmed them. So we thank His Excellency for assisting us in providing this amenity of solar traffic light so that people are now happy. And we have handed it over anyway to the Ministry of Transport under the SSA on transport.
Then within the ministry also, we ventured into providing shelter for passengers who are moving from one place to the other. If you go across the state, you will see lots of bus shelters that are located in so many places. We have 102 of those bus shelters.
The installation is ongoing today. The final installation, as I talked to you, is ongoing today. And people have testified that since the creation of Ebony State, they have never had anything like this.
Sometimes if you’re coming from another state like Enugu or Abia, the vehicle you have entered must tell you that you must follow them to the park, Central Park or whichever, Hosanna Park, as it was there. And passengers go through a lot. And so because of these bus shelters that we have provided, the idea is that if you’re coming from Enugu and, for instance, you want to drop at G Hostel, you can always tell the driver as you’re approaching, I’m stopping at G Hostel.
The driver will stop there and drop you off. And if you’re going to Enugu, you will also stand by the other side of that same G Hostel, for instance, and then wait for a bus. The bus will come from wherever and then stop and carry the passenger.
However, I have to place a note of caution here that none of those bus shelters are meant for loading a bus. That is to say, an empty bus will just come, park there, and then for passengers to be loaded. No, that is not the idea.
So, I have explained it to Keke Riders and Okada Riders. Their passengers are at liberty to use these facilities. Now that we are in the rainy season, even when we are in the dry season, the storm is not friendly to our heads and our bodies.
So you need something that will give you a little shelter so that you will at least be fine and well. And now that we are in the rainy season, if you don’t have an umbrella, sometimes a breeze of the rain can take your umbrella.
But if you are standing in any of these bus shelters, I think you will not have any problem with rain falling until the means of mobility you’re waiting for comes around.
So that is essentially the modest achievement that we have done within the two years.
We may not be where we are supposed to be, but I think His Excellency has supported us very, very well to ensure that this modest achievement that we can create and make it. And I think many people are happy about it.
