In the inaugural speech of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, he took his time to reel out his achievements for the past 4 years which he held sway as governor of Abia State.

The achievements span from Education, Health, Agriculture, Trade and Industry, Infrastructural Development and a lot more.

READ FULL DETAIL;

1. EDUCATION – It gives me joy to report to you that our state has remained a beacon of educational excellence in Nigeria.

• For 4 years running now, we have retained the 1st position in the West African Senior Schools Certificate Examinations while the students with the best and second best results in the 2019 JAMB results are students schooling in Abia State.
• We have undertaken comprehensive training and retraining of over 1,500 teachers at all levels and partnered with Australian Educators to expose them to international best standards of tutelage. Some of our teachers are about to visit Australia for advanced refresher courses in various subjects.
• We have undertaken the renovation of 304 Primary Schools and 68 Secondary Schools all-round the State in addition to piloting the construction of 4 Model Secondary Schools leading to modern learning environments for our pupils and students. Incidentally, there are still many schools that yearn for attention in our system and that will constitute a cardinal agenda in the years ahead.
• We pioneered the comprehensive feeding of school children in Abia State under our Free School Meal Program that ensures that pupils from Primary 1-6 in our Primary schools are fed one meal per day every school day in Abia State.
• Our Education for Employment Program has ensured that technical and vocational education is prioritized in Abia State leading to the establishment of a Labour Market Information System that has over 35,000 Abia Youths Registered in our Database with skills for different sectors.

2.AGRICULTURE

Abia State has always been renowned as an agrarian state and the centre of agricultural activities in the Igbo heartland. Our land is fertile and most crops germinate even without assisted soil nutrition. In the four years under review, we were able to:

• Launch large scale mushroom production and training program that is already yielding great results and attracting requests for support from other states. Many young Abians have been trained and are currently engaged in large-scale commercial mushroom production.
• We are also actively supporting rice farmers in Abia State to further boost production and put more of our highly nutritious ‘Abia Rice’ in the market.
• We have in the same vein engaged in a massive Palm planting campaign which has so far seen us planting over 4 Million Tenera specie palm seedlings across the state. Our target is to plant 7.5m seedlings by the end of 2020 and we are on course.
• We have also provided mechanized farming equipment across the state through leasing at affordable rates.
• Still on agriculture, our enhanced poultry and fish production has yielded great results with 100 poultry pens of 2,000 birds each established across the State.
• We constructed a massive 165,000-birds capacity poultry processing plant at Umuosu Nsulu in Abia Central Senatorial Zone. Additional two units for Abia North and South are currently under construction.

3. INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

The area of promotion of our local trade and commerce industry is one area we have recorded remarkable impact in our 1st tenure. We launched the Made In Aba Campaign which has opened new local and international vistas of opportunities for our producers and creative industry in Aba. Some of our milestones in this field include:

• The attraction of over N3B in direct orders into Aba leading to the creation of 600,000 new jobs in over 300,000 locations around the state.
• Seamless interface with the Federal Government which has enabled the Aba production hub to be in the centre of every Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises conversation in Nigeria and beyond.
• Capacity building for Aba producers by taking them to Turkey, Brazil, China, South Africa, Gambia, Rwanda, United States of America and Egypt to learn modern skills in leather and garment production and opening new markets for them.
• Interface with the Federal Government for the supply of uninterrupted power to 35,000 shops at the Ariaria International Market and surrounding locations.
• Procurement of full automated shoe production line from China in readiness for the imminent commencement of operation of the Abia Automated Shoe Factory in Aba.
• Attracting the setting up of the NIBRA Shoe Factory at Obuaku
• Working with the new core investors to ensure the revitalization of Golden Guinea Breweries Plc.
• We are confident that a combination of these milestones will culminate in decent job opportunities for our youths.

4. INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT

My Dear Abians, in the area of infrastructural development, we have exhibited uncommon determination and focus. Our approach was the opening up of key arteries feeding commercial traffic in and out of the city of Aba. This was key to galvanizing commercial activities in Aba which has a proven positive effect on the overall economy of Abia State. We also tackled major roads in Umuahia, our capital city and key agricultural conveyance roads in our rural areas.

To date, we have completed 76 roads and 5 Bridges while we are active on 96 other roads at various stages of completion along with an interchange at Osisioma. Time will not permit me to reel out all the roads we have done at this juncture but permit me to state that we have been deliberate in our approach to road construction by first understanding the issues surrounding each road before commencing construction.

We were very deliberate about our decision to open up the roads in Aba as they were in-roads that ventilated our markets and businesses in Aba and reopened them to inter-state and international clientele. We also had to creatively work on the Ifeobara pond to solve the flood problem on Faulks Road and Ariaria Market by extension before building the road. Today, the engineering feat recorded there is still a reference point in road construction.

We dredged the waterside at Ogbor Hill, Aba because we knew it was going to be the major recipient of storm water from the roads we would be constructing and if we do not solve the drainage problem, our roads wouldn’t last. We also deployed double drainages on all our roads and the rigid pavement technology. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to say today that the roads we have done have lasted from the first 100 days of our administration till now and I give a firm guarantee that they will outlive my tenure.

5. OTHER ENABLERS

We have equally fared creditably well in promoting our other enablers including Health, Education, Security, Ease of Doing Business and Tax Reforms.

The Health sector is one area we have stamped our mark and rolled out a number of innovative policies .We have resuscitated the long-moribund General Hospital in Aba as well as opened a new General Hospital at Obingwa.

Other General Hospitals at Okeikpe, Ikwuano, Nkporo and Arochukwu are nearing completion. We have acquired and deployed state-of-the art Mobile Hospital Ambulances in strategic locations around the state for Emergency Medical Services. We have interfaced with the Federal Ministry of Health and Global Partners for various Health Support Projects. For our senior citizens, we have rolled out our Free Geriatric Health Program and topped it with our novel Tele-Health Initiative.

In Ease of doing business, I was in Abuja last month to receive the award won by Abia State as one of the 5 most-improved states in Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria presented by the Vice President on behalf of the World Bank. We have continued to develop our tax policies to eliminate touting, crude and sharp practices and to ensure that every tax paid in Abia State gets into government coffers.