By Reuben Onyishi
(Ugoachataberu)
That which is known, seen, felt, touched, believed, and acknowledged as evidence of the heavy projects unleashed on Enugu is a function of thoughtful creativity fleshed out in Mbah’s manifesto and brought to fruition in line with the development agenda of the Mbah Administration of Enugu State.
The New Enugu Smart City is Mbah’s brain child, a product of his endevour, and the materialization of his inventive genius, as James Ene Henshaw would say in his play, “This Is our Chance.” Indeed, this is our chance to rise to the unexplored unprecedented economic heights; our chance to kiss poverty goodbye. Many thanks to God for the gift of Peter Ndubuisi Mbah to Enugu State. The New Enugu Smart City is an audacious prodigy of a project in conception and implementation. Funding the project is quite another that points to Mbah’s creative alternative finance model. Governor Mbah has expertise in creative financial intelligence which he would bring to bear on this task, the New Enugu City that would expand the over a century old city of Enugu in structural realities of our present time.
Is it just building a city for its sake? What significant value does it hold to the gaze of the ordinary man out there. Is it just a paradaisaic monument for the haves to continue to grow fat and luxuriate in riches and ambience of a cosy city at the expense of the lean have-nots? What then is it about this city in economic terms to merit the ado about it? These are some of the questions on the lips of some naysayers. Far be it from the Mbah Administration that a project of that magnitude would not benefit the man in the street. Even trickledown economies answer to the questions.
The New Enugu Smart City flushed on 9, 730, 204 hectares of land, cutting across five local governments, acquired through due process, holds to the Enugu people a cornucopia of economic benefits. Not only will the said common man benefit even at the initial period of construction by way of integrated local content skills in the understanding of what developing a new smart city entails, the entire people of Enugu State will reap bountifully the economic benefits of the new city. Besides the decongestion of Enugu, the new Enugu Smart City has the potential to attract investors who would drive the economy of the state from its present level to the targeted &30 billion GDP growth plan, and the ultimate objective of eradicating poverty to zero per cent headcount index in the state.
The new city will warehouse three artificial islands- Happy Island, Vitality Bay, and Innovation Park – designed with first-class city features in mind. It will bring the experience of Dubai, Singapore, and any major city you can imagine in all the world. The New Enugu Smart City will have utilities such as a dedicated power plant that will guarantee nonstop power supply, a central sewage system, underground electrical wiring, high-speed Internet services and all the appurtenances of a world-class smart city. With these in place, the tourism capacity and earnings of the state shall have increased by leaps and bounds.
The humongous infrastructural outlay of the new city is an irresistible bait to both local and foreign investors. The new smart city experience is irresistible and bares its bosom to the aesthetic gaze of the world. The people of the state both low and high would benefit from the emerging economies of the new city in terms of availability of jobs, demands for skilled labour, and the would-be high demand for local products as raw materials, food products and the value chains.
With mathematical precision, the New Enugu Smart City would, as returns on investment to the state government, yield over N400 billion. With this fund at the disposal of the government, it would be able to execute its many projects as articulated in Governor Mbah’s manifesto. The smart city project is a creative way by means of which the Mbah Administration raises such huge funds freely, in that the BG procured from the bank shall not have crystalized in the 36-month projected life span of the transaction.
With these funds, the 260 smart schools and the 260 type 2 hospitals shall have been completed.The 1250 kilometres of roads slated to be constructed yearly by the Mbah Administration shall have been executed in three tranches in addition to other economically-impactful projects of the Mbah Administration in agriculture, transportation, mining, ICT, the creative industry and more.
Who then are the beneficiaries of these economies of scale, the diverse opportunities opened up for businesses, the jobs created, and the demand for skilled labour, the thriving big economy, and other values the New Enugu Smart City holds? The people, of course, the said men on the streets of Ogui Road, Agbani Road, and Abakpa Junction.
