The governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, has said that all the road infrastructural interventions done by his administration in Aba, the commercial hub of the state were geared towards improving the ease of doing business in the city.
He explained that he had taken time to under study the challenges of the Aba business community on assumption of office and discovered that failed road network within the city was a huge problem.
Ikpeazu, who spoke on Saturday when he received a delegation of Abia online media practitioners association led by her chairman chief Paddy Anyatonwu, added he intentionally chose to reconstruct roads that would connect the major markets in Aba to aid movement of traders from one market to another.
The governor also stated he embarked on the construction of a flyover at the Osisioma axis of the Aba Port Harcourt express way to decongest traffic on the road and reduce the the time it would take those coming into Aba to do business to access the various markets in the city.
Again Ikpeazu, said he built the Ekereazu Ntighauzor road to connect Abia State to Akwa Ibom and Cross River State where major customers of Aba business men come from, because of the failed portions of the Aba Ikot Epkene road.
The governor equally stated that he had reviewed all the road interventions made by his predecessors and why they failed before deciding to do roads that would stand the test of time.
He said,"So my first question was why did the roads done by my predecessors failed? and to avoid making the same mistakes I had to use a special technology taking cognizance of the under ground waters. If I did not ask the right questions,I would not have done the right thing and I would not been able to do the right thing in Osusu road and most of the roads I constructed in Aba.
"I'm interested in building roads that can stand the test of time so that the person who will come after me will not go back to those roads because we used cement technology which involves cement, concrete with 9 inch rod and doing it requires some hard work and time but unfortunately our people do not have patience to wait.
"It has taken me four years to do Aba Owerri road because I had to take away the water that usually percolate at Ngwa High School and I spent 30 million Naira doing palliative there and I said God forbid and then I decided to solve the problem once and for all.
"I had to move the water at Ngwa High School by doing a 3 kilometers drainage to Rehema University and today ,we have solved the problem opposite the Anglican Church and that of Ngwa High School.
"So the essence of leadership is to solve problems ,not necessarily for people to clap for you".
Governor Ikpeazu further maintained that Abia under him has achieved many things in the area of infrastructure development ,roads construction among other things that posterity will be fair to him .
His words,"I never promised anybody that I am going to do everything but I am ready and prefer to be judged by the things I have done so far and I will submit myself to the verdict of history and posterity because there are things you can not take away from me .
"You can not take away that this government gave Abia long term development plan.This Aba has no master plan, noy even Umuahia,so it took a leader like me to know that you must do a master plan,so if the social media does not write it today,they will write it tomorrow" he said.
Earlier in his remarks Anyatonwu, said Abia online media practitioners association came to interface with the Governor, adding that the social media by engineering news play vital role in the promotion and development of every state.
He also commending Ikpeazu, for being focused despite the series of distractions he has been facing .
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