OGU BUNDU NWADIKE, M.A
One of the earliest encounter every educated person in this parts and climes makes with the concept of “priority” is in teaching and learning of basic economics.
It comes under the sub-topic “scale of preference”, in which it’s taught and learned that for effective utilization of your resources, you need to draw a scale of preference, with more important and more pressing needs preceeding the less important and less pressing needs. That’s the nature of “priority”!
In Imo State, Southeast Nigeria, where His Excellency, Distinguished Senator Hope Uzodimma, is the Executive Governor, he has displayed a good and high sense of setting and getting priorities right.
His focus on road infrastructure shows the Imo governor’s understanding of the most important and most pressing needs of the Imo humanity.
Ndigbo say: “When the road and the cow are on teether, the wise choose the road and forgo the cow, because while the cow will be eaten to finish, the road never ends”!
Every community and its indigenes need roads. The benefits of having roads are too immense and vast to be articulated in a short essay as this. The world needs good roads for a better life!
And Instructively, Governor Uzodimma has taken road construction as the first among the central projects in his great development vision and dreams for Imo State and Imo people. That’s a good priority.
Since he assumed office about 30 months ago, the governor has ensured the construction of about 500km of roads across the urban and rural areas of the State.
While about 170km are federal roads, talking about the Orlu-Owerri, Okigwe-Owerri, Owerri-Mbaise-Umuahia, Orlu-Akokwa Roads, 135km are in the 27 LGAs, with each LGA getting 5km of its roads constructed, the rest of over 200km are spread in the urban areas of Owerri Municipal, Orlu Township and Okigwe Township.
For once in many years, vehicular movement in Imo State has witnessed a genuine freedom. Driving from Owerri to Orlu or Orlu to Owerri now takes the average driver 45 minutes, because of the good condition of the Orlu-Owerri Road constructed by Governor Uzodimma!
Ditto Owerri to Okigwe and Okigwe to Owerri. What some one year ago was a nightmare on the wheels, because of the very terrible condition of the Okigwe-Owerri Road, has turned into a zoom zoom cruise that takes the average driver to Okigwe in a much shorter time.
On Tuesday, July 26, 2022, Governor Uzodimma flagged off the construction of the Owerri-Mbaise-Umuahia Road and Orlu-Mgbee-Akokwa-Uruala-Uga Road.
The two roads had been death traps for the very evident horrible conditions, of which innocent people had lost their precious lives to unavoidable ghastly and fatal road mishaps on the roads.
At the separate flag off ceremonies, the people of the areas, who will be the first and direct beneficiaries of the roads when completed, were so excited about the shift of focus to the roads by the governor. They too need good roads!
There’s no gainsaying that there’s a road revolution going on in Imo State under the watch of Governor Uzodimma.
And at the systematic and systemic way he’s going with it, by 2028 when he will bow out to a very loud ovation, by the grace of God, over 1000km of Imo roads would have been genuinely constructed.
In the next edition of our short essay series, we’ll take a look at another sector where Governor Uzodimma has got his priority right. To God be the glory!
By God’s grace, Imo State is being rehabilitated, reconstructed and recovered by Governor Uzodimma!