Peter Mbah and Ifeanyi Ossai made their manifesto public on October 13, 2022, in Enugu State. Some of the doubters dismissed the manifesto as too lofty and unrealistic. Some people laughed it off, writing off the manifesto as empty political posturing. Those chuckles were to be expected, after all, politicians have often let us down, promising us the world during election seasons only to ignore us once in office.
But since May 29, 2023, when the current Government of Enugu State took office, Peter Mbah and Ifeanyi Ossai have made it quite clear that they are the new Sheriffs in town. The Governor and the Vice Governor are working harder than anyone in our nation’s history. The enthusiasm and will to succeed are truly remarkable. All the Administration’s hustle and bustle, happily, is focused on improving the economic situation of our State’s hard-working citizens.
Ogurugu River in Uzo-uwani LGA has been on the map since colonial times, as many of us may know. Attempts by the military to establish a naval base began with the construction of a jetty, but those plans ultimately fell through due to a lack of interest. Ogurugu’s progress in the state’s development trajectory has been given a boost by the arrival of Mbah and Ossai.
On August 28, 2023, Deputy Governor Ifeanyi Ossai of Enugu State took the Nigerian Navy on a tour of the river Ogurugu. Barr. Ossai, life jacket in hand and surrounded by high-ranking navy soldiers, led the route, testing the river’s depth and determining whether or not it was navigable. The conclusion was favourable: the river is sufficiently deep and wide to allow for ship navigation. The buzz around town was electric. Some of us were experiencing the famed Ogurugu River’s undulating splendour for the first time. In the midday sun, its leafy garb glistened, a kaleidoscope of colour and texture that rang with the weight of antiquity and tradition.
There is little doubt that the benefits of this initiative will extend well beyond the borders of Ogurugu and Uzo-uwani. This is for the good of Enugu State and all of Nigeria. It will be the first time the Nigerian federal government has a substantial presence in the Nsukka senatorial zone. It’s a “multi-pronged attack on insecurity, poverty, and unemployment,” as one neighbourhood elder put it.
The establishment of a naval base in Ogurugu has put a halt to border raids, kidnappings, and random killings in Uzo-uwani. Criminals have taken advantage of the fact that the Ogurugu River serves as a gateway between the states of Anambra to the east and Kogi and Benue to the north. Because of the naval installation, crime in the region will be reduced to nil.
Because the agro-allied and fossil-fuel potentialities of the LGA are essentially un-harnessed, the Uzo-uwani community is like folks who live on the river bank but wash with spittle. Uzo-uwani has been declared as an agro-allied processing zone by the Enugu State Government, thus agricultural products from the LGA would have a low-cost means of transit thanks to the waterways. Moreover, it’s a blessing to see that barges from Lagos are already docking in Onitsha on the Niger River. The Ogurugu waterways will serve as a hub for the circulation of products throughout the states of the South-east and as a passageway to the states to the north.
Enugu’s status as an oil-producing state, with its accompanying 13% derivation, will be cemented by oil drilling in Uzo-uwani, which will also draw infrastructures to the state. There are plans in the works to build state-of-the-art naval hospitals, schools, and other facilities. This is only the beginning of the infrastructures that will emerge in the LGA.
Ifeanyi Ossai has taken the lead in this effort, and the entire state of Nigeria owes him and the Enugu State Government a debt of gratitude.
God bless Enugu State!
